


The Fallen

by SHADOWSQUILL



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Human Doctor (Doctor Who), Ninth Doctor Era, Post-regeneration, Tenth Doctor Era, Therapy, mental health, power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2020-12-24 07:10:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 39,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21095462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHADOWSQUILL/pseuds/SHADOWSQUILL
Summary: "The street lights were spreading a soft glow on the pavements but obscurity was gaining ground. Anything could stand in the shadows. He was well aware of that fact. He also operated in the dark. So were the worst demons."





	1. Chapter 1

Bradley Lewis was used to seeing extraordinary things in this world, things that didn’t belong here. Many would call him a liar. Many already did. He was laughing at their faces. As if their opinions ever had any importance to him. He had stopped listening to them a long time ago. Many were pointing at him when they saw or heard him. To them, he was just another waste polluting the streets, a young man who had given up on his studies to focus on the incredible imagination and scientific knowledge he had been gifted with. What use were they to him now? They had no idea and showing them would lead him into deep troubles. His friends were nicknaming him Brad Speed in reference to his first name and to his activities. Bradley was cooking a particular kind of drugs called Speedball in the streets. It was a perfect blend of cocaine and heroin. He had been a junkie before, had tried many drugs but could never find _the_ drug… until he used his knowledge to create the ultimate one.

His hands were shaking in the cold night of Manchester. He plunged them in the pockets of his coat. They were stuffed with deliveries he had to do tonight. His usual delivery guy had vanished into thin air with hundreds of pounds of merchandise. If Bradley ever found him, he would be a dead man for sure. Until then, he was doing his own deliveries. It wasn’t without risks. It never was, especially with undercover cops. Bradley was placing all his hopes on Christmas Eve to go unnoticed among people rushing to get the last things done, to go to the place where family and friends were gathered. People were waiting for him too but it wasn’t to celebrate the birth of God’s son with pagan rituals. He was Santa Claus in a way. A Father Christmas generously paid. He was the most expensive on the market but the quality of his products made the price worth it. The addiction made people come back to him for more and, like every dealer, he was diluting it. They were coming back quicker.

Bradley glanced up at the dark sky and took a deep breath. The atmosphere was saturated with anxiety, excitation, joy and general good mood, with smells of food floating out of every house and every flat of the district, with Christmas songs. It was filling him with happiness. He smiled at the sky. He liked it. However, there was a hint of something spoiling this joyful night. Something dark and powerful. It gave him the chills. No one else seemed to feel it. And yet, it was everywhere. It was like a spider web slowly being weaved. Each thread was connecting to each other in an attempt to catch a prey. Who was it tonight? Was it him, the perfectly aware of the trap? Or one of those people wandering around unaware of the danger? There were still a lot of people outside. It could fall on anyone. Warning them would be useless. They would look at him as if he was crazy. It wouldn't be the first time but with the fact that something terrible was about to happen, it was frustrating.

He remembered that feeling. He had experienced it before. The feeling of utter terror. He hadn’t felt this in a long while. He hadn’t missed it. That was one of the reasons he had stopped taking drugs. You couldn’t be the chemist and the junkie. He had made a choice, the choice of being clean so others could get high. The higher they got, the richer he was. Everyone thought he was a tramp but he actually had a very nice flat in the richest district of Manchester. Tonight, this money, this knowledge of sciences wasn’t preventing him from trembling. He was standing still, in the dark street. The street lights were spreading a soft glow on the pavements but obscurity was gaining ground. Anything could stand in the shadows. He was well aware of that fact. He also operated in the dark. So were the worst demons. His hallucinations always came out of the obscurity. But he was totally clean and sober. He couldn’t be in that condition anymore.

His legs refused to move. His muscles were tensed to the point it was painful. The streets all around were desert, and the silence was adding to the thick atmosphere. It was hard to breathe. The exact same condition he was experiencing in his nightmares, in his hallucinations. He was expecting to see it, the golden Wolf. It would come out of the shadows and jump on him. He didn’t know where this image was coming from but it had been haunting him for years. He was a young boy when it first appeared to him. Many therapists had hit the brick wall on its meaning. Later, the drugs had reinforced his fear and materialised the Wolf. He hadn’t seen it again since he was clean but tonight… The first sign showed up as expected. It was a thread of golden light floating in the air. It was beautiful and powerful and terribly dangerous. Bradley stopped breathing. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t get in his system. There were more and more of them, gathering in the air like a poisoned fog. It grew until the whole street was filled and then, it exploded.

It made no sound and yet, it was deafening. His ears were ringing, his eardrums were suffering the aftermath of the powerful explosion. It was as if there had been a gas leak, except there was no smell, no fire, no damages. Instead, there was just a man. He was standing there, looking at his hands that were glowing with that strange golden light that had filled the air a couple seconds earlier. Where had he come from? Was he born from this mini big bang? It seemed like the only answer. He was unaffected by the power this light was clearing. He wasn’t paralyzed. He looked scared but not for the same reasons that made Bradley terrified. This man _knew_ what this golden light was, what it was doing to him, and that was what was frightening him. He glanced up and Bradley was struck. Suddenly, he was stuck like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights. This man’s eyes were burning as bright as his hands. The golden Wolf was here. It didn’t have the shape of the ferocious animal that had been haunting his dreams. No, the Wolf of his dreams was actually a man.

The man titled his head back, his eyes now showing their flames to the dark sky, and let out a roar so lout that the ground and walls trembled. Bradley hadn’t moved. He couldn’t. He was as fascinated as terrified. He had a strange feeling. Time was not acting as usual. There was something different. A feeling of stillness as well as acceleration, a feeling of time happening all at once before his eyes while it was frozen all around him and the man. It was as cool as unbearable. He couldn’t get a grip on time and it was so quick, so raw, so brutal that his whole body was suffering from severe failures. His head was burning and his mind was screaming the same words over and over again: _‘I’m the Bad Wolf. I create myself.’_ It was a litany, a song, a memory. Bradley closed his eyes pressed his hands on his ears, wishing for it to be done already. It was worse than the worst of his nightmares. He wanted to wake up from this, wake up in the comfort and safety of his bedroom.

All of a sudden, it was all over. The lights, the voice, the pressure. Bradley fell on his knees. The distinct thumb that followed informed him that the man had fallen too. He was scared to go and check on him. Himself was shaking, panting, just by being caught in the diameter of this power’s field of action. This man was the epicentre. He probably was dead. But he had to check. It was the normal thing to do as a human. Even as a terrified human. His legs were wobbly when he stood up. He reeled to the middle of the streets where the man was now laying still.

“Sir?” Bradley called out.

The man showed no reaction to the sound of his voice. It sounded muffled. The explosion had hurt his ears for real. He spoke louder. Was it a reaction he had seen? The fingers had moved. Bradley walked closer. The man opened his eyes wide. No more golden light. Just a bloke who appeared out of the blue. He sat up straight, Bradley stepped back. He looked crazy, feverish. _High_.

“Are you okay?”

Bradley swallowed when the man darted his eyes on him. He meant nothing hostile but Bradley took another step back. Just a precaution. He was up on his feet now. Old ripped jeans, a shirt that had seen better days. No shoes. No ID papers.

“Do you know someone called Rose Tyler?”

Bradley shook his head. The man was annoyed and disappointed by this answer and the urgency and barely hidden panic in his voice was making the situation look really serious. Whoever was this Rose Tyler and whatever this man had to do with her, it was important.

“That’s the wrong place,” he babbled. “Right time but wrong place. I need to get to London now.”

“It’s Christmas Eve, sir.”

“Especially because it’s Christmas Eve! I gotta find her before… It’s not right. It’s not right at all. Can’t you see it? Are all humans as stupid as you?!”

The man continued his angry ramble and suddenly, he was running away. Bradley didn’t move, didn’t run after him. Whatever drug he was taking, it was a strong one. The man was in a deep delirium. The comedown would be hard for him.

Bradley should have called someone, the police or an ambulance. This man needed help obviously. But he couldn’t take the risk of getting caught with drugs on him. And how would he explain what had happened earlier? They would throw him with the crazy guys in one of the NHS in town. Or in jail. He had to avoid that so he played selfish and left without a word about this man.

x

“Sir, I’m gonna ask you to stop and turn around with your hands above your head.”

Ashes were falling from the sky, covering the ground with white flakes, imitating snow. It smirked but stopped running on this soft ground. It was giving this human police officer a semblance of power but it was the one with all the cards. His host had reached London too late, and the Powell Estate even later. Hours too late. He had knocked on Jackie’s door, been called names and slapped and kicked out by the terrible Jackie. He couldn’t tell if Rose was there or if she had gone back with the new Doctor but Jackie was obviously blaming him for something. He had tried to warn her, to let her know about the situation but couldn’t place a word. The older Tyler had been in power and he couldn’t get to Rose. He couldn’t tell her. This had thrown him in such a rage that he had lost himself to the entity living inside him. Now, it was in control, using his body to do as it pleased. Something he wasn’t delighted with.

“Turn around. Hands up.”

As if it was ever gonna happen. This officer was just a toy in its hands. It loved being in control. It could make this man disappear in just a snap of fingers. Just like that. It was held up though. The consciousness of his host, the reminder of thousands lives already gone were weighing heavy on his shoulders. It sighed heavily and surrendered to its reasonable side. It raised its hands nonchalantly and turned around with a broad smile on its face.

“Is there a problem, officer?”

Its eyes were shining with that golden glow. The officer moved backward in an almost unnoticeable way but it did notice it. That man was feeling the threat behind this raggedy looks. Good. He would be prudent. He wouldn’t provoke the wrath of a stranger in the dark. English police officers were unarmed which was both good and bad. Even if he was armed and pointing a gun at him now, what could a bullet do to something that could dissolve it before it was fired.

“A woman called to tell us that a man was harassing her. You match her description.”

The smile was gone, replaced by an expression of profound disgust. Jackie. She had sent the cops after him. Cops. _Us_. There were several officers. So why was there only one before him? There must be another one somewhere around. Cops always worked in team of two. Its senses were on alert. If there was a threat – beside itself – it wouldn’t be taken by surprise.

“Ah.” He faked a sad smile. “Jackie Tyler, innit? Her daughter just broke up with me. I was trying to talk to her but Jackie kicked me out. Calling the police was another one of her excessive reactions.”

“You don’t look like someone who has been dumped recently.”

It shrugged. The police officer was cleverer than he looked. It pretended to be really affected and unable to know how to feel about the end of this relationship that had been so addictive to him. It apologised for the bother. It wouldn’t happen again. It lowered his arms slowly. They were done. It could go. It was about to turn around when it lost the control. The anger was gone. He was back and desperate and weak. His legs gave way and he collapsed to the ground.

“It’s in my head. In our heads. The Wolf. The Wolf. The Bad Wolf. It’s not gone. It’s still there. I need the Doctor. I need to tell Rose. The Bad Wolf isn’t gone.”

He went on and on until exhaustion hit him. He fought it. He couldn’t fall asleep. Not now. The situation was critical. He had to tell Rose. They had to let the Doctor know. But the darkness took over and he was out.


	2. Chapter 2

“Who are you?”

It was laughable how this question was always coming back to him in whatever life he was living. Laughable how different the species of the universe could be, and yet how identical they were. They hated the emptiness, the unexplained. They need to name things, to name people. That was an obsession, a necessity. He had given many answers to this question. Many lies and many truths for many reasons. The only reason he had to lie today was for his safety. He didn’t like the place, didn’t like the staff. He was distrustful. There was an atmosphere here that he would qualify of unhealthy though he couldn’t quite identify why it made him so uneasy.

“I’m the Doctor. What about you?”

“Doctor who?”

“Ding ding ding, we have a winner for the jackpot.”

This joke never got old and never failed to make him laugh. The person in front of him didn’t find him any funny though. He was only worsening his current condition. They already thought he was crazy. He couldn’t deny it. When he had woken up after fainting in that street, he was in a tiny room with cracked white paint. He was laying in an old bed that was grating every time he moved. By his right, there was a small window with bars and a blind partially shut. Under that window, there was a small wonky table. There were two doors. One was facing the window, the other was facing the bed. One was locked, the other was leading to a bathroom barely large enough for a shower booth, a sink and toilets. He was stuck in this room for as long as whoever locked him here would want to keep him. With a sonic screwdriver, he might have been able to get out. But he had nothing. Not even a shoelace. That’s how he had understood where he was. A mental hospital. Not a surprise.

Later that day, a nurse had come in and he had followed her obediently. He had been introduced in the office of a certain doctor Nash Grieve. His therapist. He had sat down and listened o her as she explained to him that he had been found babbling incoherent things in the streets. The police had brought him here. He had been so defeated that day, so down to have failed that he accepted to be locked in this building until he was better. The medical staff was coming to him every now and then to check on him. He wouldn’t be out of bed. Sometimes, they would sit down and talk to him for a couple minutes. He would say nothing, just stare at the ceiling as if it was holding the answers to his questions. He would follow the group he was assigned to when it was time to eat. All of this for a full week and now, he was back in this office and playing dumb in front of the doctor Grieve. But the feeling if uneasiness he was feeling in this place gave him the strong urge to run away. Which he couldn’t.

“You looked better than a couple days ago.”

“I’m feeling better. Your staff has taken great care of me.”

“They are concerned about you.”

“Why’s that? I don’t cause troubles.”

“Indeed you don’t.”

The doctor Grieve leant back in her chair and crossed her hands on her stomach. She fixed him silently for a moment. It was making him more uncomfortable than he already was. This woman wasn’t impressive though. She maybe was in her fifties with dark brown hair turning to grey on her roots and temples. She was thick-set but not fat. There was something motherly about her. She couldn’t be a bad woman. So why was he detecting something wrong in here?

“They gave me the police report of that night.”

He gave a nod. It had been mentioned already. He remembered facing a police officer and losing it but he didn’t remember what he was saying. Something that had caught their attention. Something that was justifying his presence here. But he was better, so it would be logical to let him go. Which wasn’t gonna happen. If the medical staff had concerns about him, they would keep him in this hospital to be sure he wasn’t a danger for anyone, himself included.

“The blood test they ran on you showed that you were negative to drugs and alcohol. Yet, you were babbling about something being in your head and in someone else’s head. A woman named Rose. You’ve added: _‘I need the Doctor. The Bad Wolf isn’t gone’_.”

“Oh. I see. That’s embarrassing.”

He had done this dream numerous times these past days. It wasn’t really a dream. It was a memory. He remembered it fully now: he had kissed Rose Tyler on Satellite 5 to take the Bad Wolf out of her head and save her. That was the original plan. And it had gone wrong. Really, _really_ wrong. He hadn’t felt it immediately. That was only when he woke up in the middle of that street in Manchester that things had appeared clearly to him and from that moment, he had known that he had to get to Rose to the new Doctor and tell them about the situation. However, he couldn’t get to Rose – thanks to Jackie who probably hated him more than ever now – and the Doctor hadn’t seemed to catch any of his distress calls. Or he was deliberately ignoring them. For once, he would be following the rules. Wasn’t it ironic?

There was an unspoken rule in the Time Lords’ community, an unspoken story. They were keeping these hidden because of the shame these superior beings had toward this part of them. The Doctor was called a thief for stealing a type 40 TARDIS, but the truth was that all Time Lord were thieves. They were born with one face and were stealing the eleven others among people they met in their long lives, and when they were regenerating, the face they had taken was sent back to its previous life without any memories of being a Time Lord or Lady for many years. That was why there were so many missing persons, especially on Earth. Humans shapes were easier to steal, made it easier to fit in in the universe with how far they had spread their territory. And they didn’t suspect anything when they came back on Earth.

This face belonged to a man named Maxence Spitz. When the Doctor had come across him, he was a young man going through a hard time. He had just lost his best friend and was falling into a dark circle of depression. He made friends with the teenager and kept him in mind when he left. When he had stolen his face, Maxence was in his thirties and was struggling to find a job. He had done lots of small jobs but couldn’t find a career of his own. The Doctor had given him the stars and a heavy weight to carry on his shoulders. He should have forgotten about all of this when he sacrificed himself for Rose. It was underestimating the Bad Wolf. The entity split in three. A part of it went back to the TARDIS, the two others remained stuck in the two humans’ minds. That was a really problematic.

His instincts were warning him that telling his real name to this woman wasn’t a good idea. It would be used against him, against his family. He would never let anything happen to his mother and brother, especially with the power now sleeping in his head. He would stick to the Doctor for now, even if that meant staying here for a little longer. He had to contact his family so they could come and see him, and hopefully free him from this hospital. He wouldn’t get out on his own.

“What’s embarrassing?”

“This is a trouble I’ve developed when I was a little boy. I had night terrors and was sleepwalking in time of great anxiety. I was never really diagnosed. Mom and I both knew what was causing them.”

It was a lie though it really could have happened to him. His youth hadn’t been one of the best. He shouldn’t be able to remember because of how young he was back then, but he did. There were the cries, and the yells, and the pain. Sometimes, they were coming back to him. But he hadn’t heard them in years. Not the ones of that night. Instead, he had heard the screams haunting the Doctor’s dream and he was forever stuck with them now. There were more pleasant memories thankfully. He would cherish them.

“Alright.”

The doctor Grieve didn’t seem entirely convinced with his explanation but she was accepting it anyway and adding it to the file. _His_ file. He had a medical record in a psychiatric hospital. He would have laughed if he had been able to. It was useless to worsen the situation even more.

“Who’s Rose?”

“My ex-girlfriend. She had just dumped me when the police found me. Her mother kicked me out and I was so stunned that I sat down in a corner and cried. Must have fallen asleep after that.”

“What’s your name?”

“Why do you want to know my name?”

“What don’t you want to give me your name?”

“I prefer staying anonymous. Let’s stick to ‘the Doctor’ please.”

“You’re not making things easy for yourself, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Enough with bollocks!”

Both the doctor Grieve and the Doctor jumped in surprise when the voice raised out of nowhere. The door was opened with violence and an angry man came. The therapist held herself back from sighing and rolling her eyes upon seeing him while the Doctor froze and stared. _It is impossible…_ And yet, it was. Jeremy Backfire, his father, was standing there, in the threshold.

The Wolf felt the confusion and fear and rage rising in its host and feed on it to get some strength back. It hadn’t been in control in the last few days, hadn’t showed up because it wanted him out of this hospital. That wouldn’t happen if it was being visible. Plus, it had been considerably weakened with the loads of energy it spent with his arrival on Earth and his attempt to get to Rose but its host’s negative emotions and the evil aura coming from this newcomer was giving him new strengths and enabled him to rise again.

The Doctor got up so fast that it sent the chair to the floor with a loud noise. His eyes had that bright golden glow again. The Wolf was there but he still had control. It didn’t have enough power. It was still channelling, absorbing. It would come out at the right time hopefully.

“There you are,” exulted Jeremy. He turned to Nash, totally unimpressed by the power his son was spreading in the room. “His real name’s Maxence Spitz. He told you the truth about being the Doctor. What you’re witnessing now _is_ the Doctor teaming up with the powerful entity called Bad Wolf.”

Contrarily to Jeremy, Nash was clearly impressed and pretty scared by what she was seeing. An order was given: The Doctor had to be mastered and taken to an isolated cell. Nurses came in. They obviously had been waiting for this order to come. The doctor Grieve didn’t agree with these methods. Jeremy Backfire was her boss. He owned the place and she certainly had nothing to say to him about his way of ruling the place. But this man, Maxence Spitz or the Doctor… whatever he was called, was her patient. It was her duty to protect him and she couldn’t have him thrown into an isolation cell just because she was asked to.

She was about to place herself in front of Maxence to stand in the way of the newcomers when the man she was trying to defend moved. He was so swift that she only saw a trail of golden light and then, he was holding one of the nurses with an armlock in her back and was threatening to kill her if Jeremy wasn’t going away. He was using that poor innocent as a human shield. If it had been Nash, it would have worked. But Jeremy only smirked. The Wolf broke the neck of the poor woman and let her body fall to the ground like a puppet. The other nurses stepped back. So did Nash. She was genuinely terrified now.

“You won’t have him,” growled the Wolf. “I won’t let you.”

Maxence Spitz was his host now and the entity would protect him until his death. Which hopefully wouldn’t happen anytime soon. They needed the Doctor to fix this mistake he had made, but he was turning a deaf ear. So Maxence and the Wolf had to team up to survive and protect themselves.

“Take him away. Now.”

The voice was firm. The order was clear. The Wolf wasn’t strong enough at the moment to deal with four nurses and a mad director. It faded away in the middle of the struggle and Maxence was abandoned to the hands of medical people that were dragging him away. Nash tried to protest but Jeremy wouldn’t change his mind. This patient was his now.


	3. Chapter 3

It took two days to the doctor Grieve to find Maxence and have access on his room. Jeremy Backfire had taken him to the lowest level of this hospital, in the isolation ward, and was keeping him under close watch with staff obeying to him and him only. They had refused to allow her in this part of the hospital so far and there was worse to it. Jeremy had made changes in this building when he arrived here. He totally reorganised the basement and no one could access it without the appropriate card for the reader. She had no idea of what was going on downstairs but she had a bad feeling about it. So part of her was relieved to be told that her patient was in ordinary isolation and not somewhere else. Even more to be allowed to see him again. Last time she had seen him… He was in such a rage… But there had been more. Fear. The fear of a child. Nash hadn’t worked with many children or teenagers in her career – she mostly was working with adults – but the ones she had had in therapy all had that look of terror on their faces. Abused children.

That point had strengthened her determination to find her patient. Whoever Jeremy Backfire was to him, she couldn’t leave Maxence around him. She couldn’t leave a formerly abused man around his abuser. She was even thinking about transferring him to another hospital and telling it to her boss at the very last minute. But how to explain what had happened right under her eyes? She hadn’t understood yet what she saw. It had been unreal. She didn’t want to abandon her patient because of that detail. She wanted to help him. Jeremy’s ways wouldn’t work with that man. She had to take things slow and be kind. She had to speak more with him to think of a method of work with him. He needed special cares, more attention. Good attention. Not the unhealthy one Jeremy had in store for him. He was her boss but she wasn’t blind, nor was she insensitive. There was something evil in that man, something deeply rotten at his core. But he was refusing to have her transferred to another place of work for an unknown reason.

Nash slid her card in the reader and entered the isolation ward. Her steps echoed in the empty corridor. Chamber n°9. She unlocked the door and turned on a dim light. She scrunched up her nose when her sense of smell was attacked with odours of fresh urine and blood. The room was entirely padded. There was no furniture, not even the minimum of comfort. Just a bucket that hadn’t been emptied. What intrigued her the most was the large ring of metal embedded in the ground. Chains were attached to it. What use could they have in there? Her eyes followed the chains to find their ends. She was dreading what she would find and she wasn’t wrong: sat in a corner of the padded room, fully naked, was her patient. He was very calm for someone who was shackled and had gone through Jeremy’s cares. Other patients would be terrified, would have pulled on the chains until their wrists were all bruised and skinned. He sure had marks on his wrists and ankles and other parts of his body but he was trying to get free from his restraints.

“You’ve come to finish me off?” he asked bitterly. “He owns the place, made me come here on purpose.”

“I am afraid not to understand, sir.”

The Doctor looked up at her. His bottom lip was cut and bleeding. His nose seemed broken. He had been beaten obviously. Was he in chains when they did? The nudity wasn’t bothering him but he was cold. She was less comfortable with his nakedness, especially with how thin he looked. It couldn’t be natural to be so skeletal.

“Are you hungry?”

The question caught him off guard. Was it a trick? Was she trying to lure him into a trap to get information about the Doctor, about the Wolf? He wasn’t gonna fall in that trap. His chains clinked when he stretched his sore body giving Nash a full view on what wounds had been inflicted to him. She looked sincerely horrified by what she was seeing. Maybe she was honest. Maybe she really wanted to help. He remained silent. He would have to wait and see. He observed her, quite disappointed when she left the room and locked it behind her. He had all alone in this. That was what it looked like.

He had not expected her to come back, but when she did, she had a bowl with warm water in her hands, a towel on her shoulder and she had one of those medical bags on her other shoulder. She put everything down beside him and knelt down. He was surprised to see her again. She was silent. She pulled a key out of her pocket. She unlocked the chains, got rid of it. Immediately, he rubbed his irritated skin. He had his freedom back, but he didn’t try to run away. He let her come close and wash his face delicately. She had a motherly touch, that couldn’t be denied.

“What’s the link between you and Jeremy Backfire?”

The Doctor snorted. His nose wasn’t broken after all. Or maybe it had been and the Wolf had healed it. He wasn’t gonna say this to the doctor Grieve. She would think he was crazy. Or worse. But her interest was elsewhere at the moment. That was something he could feed her with.

“He’s nothing to me.”

“So you are the Doctor.”

“I keep telling you so.”

“He’s nothing to you, but what about Maxence?”

Silence. A look of profound distrust. A move back. Just the name of Maxence had pushed him behind a wall of protection. The Doctor was a dominant personality. He was there to protect Maxence who was the weakest point, the real identity. The one Nash was interested into. But the Doctor wasn’t gonna leave to let Maxence talk to her.

“I’d like to speak with Maxence. Is it possible?”

Her voice was soft. She was giving him the choice and the Doctor considered leaving the spot to Maxence for a moment but after weighing the pros and cons, he decided that it was better to keep his real identity hidden from everyone for now. She would only talk to him, the Doctor, the strongest personality. He was still there for Maxence. His purpose was to keep him safe and sound, to protect the weak and stand against injustice. It was what he was doing all around time and space, right? This place was no different.

“Can you tell me the story then? I know you are the stronger one. You’re here to protect him. I gotta know what Jeremy’s done to him. What is making Maxence so scared of him that you were forced to use the strength inside you to go against him?”

“The strength inside me.”

There was a tone of disdain in his voice. The strength inside him. It was a way to define the Wolf. It was a strength, a power inside him that didn’t belong there. But he would go with that turn of sentence. It was easier and safer for Nash Grieve to believe that.

“Jeremy Backfire is Maxence’s progenitor. A violent man. He used to beat his son and wife on a daily basis. She kicked him out of the house when Maxence was two. He’s beaten his son so hard that he stayed in the coma for nine full days.”

“He hasn’t changed much on that. He has an aura that makes everyone uncomfortable.”

“Not everyone can feel auras. Actually, no human can fell auras. You need a touch of extra— Oh!”

His eyes grew big when he understood. This woman wasn’t human. Not entirely. There was something more to her and he felt stupid for not noticing it sooner. He was usually good at identifying species with one glance. He was growing tired or losing his talent. The Wolf should have identified her as different but this human shell wasn’t made for such a power and every time it was coming out, it needed time to recover. This triple personality was confusing every single of his sense.

The doctor Nash Grieve put the soft sponge away in the bowl. She dried her hands with the towel, gathered her hair on her shoulder and showing him the back of her neck. His face turned pale. It was a logo he knew very well. The Quiston Calcium Assassins of Gallifrey. A special branch. He had heard rumours about the Quiston Assassins collaborating with the planet Shifterz but he never actually had the proof that it was true. Until now. The ultimate Time Lords assassins had hired shapeshifters.

“Don’t blame yourself for the loss of the planet, Doctor. You saved us all.”

Lots of shapeshifters had been forced to participle to this new collaboration. They had been chosen and sent away from their home, their family, their kind to follow one of the hardest training ever created and have themselves confronted to many questionable methods. Just to think about it was making Nash sick. She preferred pushing the thought away. She put her hair back on her neck and readjusted her shirt. He caught the sight of a scar that looked like an old stab wound. This woman obviously had gone through a lot.

Nash finished the sponge bath she was giving him and delicately dried his body with the towel. All his wounds were healed now. She opened her bag and gave him clean clothes. It was a patient outfit but it was better than nothing. He pulled it on.

“I came on Earth to start a new life. I’d never have thought our paths would cross. But it’s my duty to keep you safe. I owe you.”

“You owe me nothing.”

Once again, his voice was bitter. It was gratifying to hear that you had saved a lot of people by ending a destructive war but his own kind had died in the process. Even if they didn’t get along, they were _his_ people and it was really hard to carry the weight of their death on his shoulders. Especially because he was the one who had caused it.

Now that he was all clean, dressed and healed, Nash escorted him to the cafeteria where many patients were gathered already and he was allowed to eat as much as he could. He was starving. Jeremy hadn’t fed him at all. He was only keeping him locked in that room where he wasn’t torturing him for his own pleasure. There might be a reason behind it but it hadn’t been revealed yet. However, the Doctor knew that it was about the Wolf. It could only be about the Wolf.

Nash Grieve felt a certain relief to have revealed her secret to the only person who could have understood her situation. She had indeed never thought that her path would cross the Doctor’s one day. She owed him a lot. During the war, she had run away from Gallifrey with a couple of other members of the Quiston Calcium Assassins. Members who had never known anything else but that life. She had shown them what life was really about, had tried to disarm their assassin’s instincts… Sadly, those abilities would always be in them. It was their burden as both shapeshifters and trained assassins. She had taught them the free will and had hoped they would find peace as they started their lives again on different planets. It was all up to them to control themselves and live as happily as they could.

Herself had found peace by settling down on Earth. She had fit in nicely, had studied and had become a therapist. When she had arrived on the terrestrial planet, she had noticed that a lot of shapeshifters were living around. Some were handling their double identity perfectly when others went mad. That was for this last category that she had chosen to work in a psychiatric hospital. She was helping them getting better and getting out of this place before anyone could find out what they really were. No one ever suspected what she was doing and it was for the best. Things had gotten more complicated when Jeremy Backfire had bought this place, made it his and started creating rules that were in total contradiction with the ethic of a mental hospital. This place would never feel as comfortable and peaceful as before as long as he would be here.

Thankfully he hadn’t found out about Nash’s real identity. For him, she was only a human therapist who had been working here for a long time. He hadn’t wanted to sack here for some reasons, had kept most of the staff already here when he arrived. Probably to keep up with the appearances so no one would come and have a closer look at what he was doing. His secret activities in the basement were really intriguing though but Nash could never find a way to get there. The security was too high, too good and she couldn’t take any risk. If she was to lose this job, she would let down a lot of people, including the man who enabled her to have this life she loved. She had to stay around for him so she would keep away from Jeremy until she could defeat him one way or another. Which could take time.

Nash entered the nurses’ break room. She would wait here until the Doctor was done eating. After that, she would take him to a new room where he would get a minimum of comfort. She would talk to him later, in her office. No need to rush things. She walked in the dormitory nurses shared when they had to work long shifts. Her heart leapt in her chest when she saw the silhouette of Maya Carson, a nurse working under her command, laying unconscious on the ground. There was blood close to her. It wasn’t normal. What had happened?


	4. Chapter 4

Maya Carson was one of Nash’s oldest friends. They were both from Shitferz and had both been part of that experimental program of exchange between their planet and Gallifrey. They hadn’t been told anything, they were just put on the list and sent away. The Quiston Calcium Assassins weren’t known for creating friendships or other bonds between people. Instead, they were setting their recruits against each other to make them merciless, heartless and bloodthirsty. The perfect assassins. Nash and Maya had both played the game; they had both compelled to their rules. They had become two of the best assassins of this deadly organization, had executed all their contracts. Their shapeshifter genes were giving them a longevity of life and a healing ability that was very useful when you were fighting targets stronger than you.

When the Daleks and the Time Lords began fighting in a war that was to destroy everything around, the Quiston Assassins were sent on the battlefield. On the front lines. Despite their training, many of them had died that day. Maya was pregnant. It wasn’t visible yet, but Nash knew it. They had kept the secret. Only Maya’s husband, Oliver, another member of the Quiston Assassins, did know about the news, and they were all fighting for the sake of this future child. It wouldn’t have the same life as them on Gallifrey. No, it would come to this world in a better world than this one. That was their belief. The intervention of the Doctor was what saved them. He gave them the time to run away, to steal a TARDIS of their own and find another planet to settle down. Earth hadn’t been their first choice but it had been their best.

This had happened over thirty years ago in their current timeline but the memories of it were still fresh. Forgetting about their killing instincts and making themselves accepted had been the hardest parts and they were still working on this, even now. Sadly, Oliver wasn’t around anymore – a divergence of opinions and an inability to control himself had caused his downfall – but Maya had found help in Texas. A married couple of shapeshifter and witch took her under their wing and took care of her for a moment. Maya had given birth to her daughter in this atmosphere and safety before coming to England, to London where she met again with Nash. She was forced to abandon her daughter in an orphanage for her safety when other assassins that had fled from Gallifrey came after them. The woman was growing somewhere in this world and Maya had no way to know where she was. But she would find her one day.

“Maya? Maya, dear, do you hear me?”

There was a clear wound on her temple. She had been knocked out with a heavy object. If she had been human, it could have killed her. They would have to pretend she was human and stitch that wound so no one – especially the person who caused this – would suspect a thing. With someone like Jeremy around, better lie low.

“Wake up, please. You can’t let me down now. We haven’t found her yet.”

The mention of her daughter brought some life into Maya whose eyes slowly fluttered open. She groaned. She was having a headache now. She brought her fingers to her head and touched the bleeding wound. She made a grimace of pain.

“What the…”

Her instincts quickly kicked back in and she immediately jumped on her feet. All her body was on alert but she was dizzy from the pain throbbing in her head. She clutched the frame of a bunk bed to keep steady. She would fight anyone coming near her. This dizziness was nothing compared to everything she had gone through.

“Sh, sh, sh,” said Nash. “It’s only me. Do you remember what happened?”

Maya focused. She relaxed only when she was able to distinctly identify Nash beside her. She sat on a bed with a heavy sigh. No, she hadn’t seen nothing at all. It was her break time so she had come here for a bit of sleep and before she could see or hear anything, she was out. Her reflexes weren’t as sharp as before. It wasn’t good.

She let Nash clean and stitch her wound. She also accepted the band aid. It would hide the fact the cut and bruise would be gone in a few hours or less. No need to draw more attention on her. She already didn’t know why she had been attacked. It was frustrating for a former assassin to have been knocked out so easily.

“I need to tell you something, but I can’t do it in here.”

She was almost certain that Jeremy was spying on his employees to be sure they were obeying his orders and not nosing around like Nash was sometimes tempted to do. He was hiding secrets, dark secrets, and the therapist didn’t like that at all. She needed to talk about this, and about her patient, to her friend. It would have to wait until their shifts were over. She couldn’t even take the risk to speak telepathically. She was acting as humanly as possible.

“The bathrooms aren’t on watch.”

Maya’s voice had been so low that only a person with enhanced senses could have heard her. Still, Nash looked around and gave her friend a nod. They would find a bathroom and have their talk there if it was the most secure place of the building. Not the most appalling or pleasant for people with such developed sense of smell but it would do.

They found one near the isolation ward and Nash made sure to check every corner and every hub. Safety first. She was very distrustful toward the owner of the place and the changes he had done around here. No micro and no camera in the bathrooms. At least, he had some respect left. A breach in his so perfect security.

“I have a new patient,” whispered Nash.

Just like Maya minutes before, she was speaking very low so only her could hear what she was saying. If anyone was passing by, they wouldn’t even suspect that someone was on this bathroom unless they came in. The two women would pretend to be washing their hands after using the loo. As simple as that.

“I’ve heard of something about a new guy around. A psycho.”

“No, not at all. It’s _him_.”

Maya’s eyes grew big. _It’s **him**_. She couldn’t believe those words and yet, her friend wouldn’t lie to her. So it had to be true. The Doctor, the man who saved their lives thirty years ago, was here. As a patient. What could that mean? Was he undercover or something?

“What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Do you think he…”

Nash shook her head. The Doctor wasn’t undercover. Something had gone wrong and he had gone nuts. He was t there for Jeremy either. He had been surprised to see him two days ago. A bad surprise. The rage and fear and disgust had made him lose it completely. Well, the person he stole this face from had lost it. Quite impressive. The body had been taken care of by Jeremy’s staff. Mash preferred not knowing what they had done of the poor woman’s cadaver but she hoped it was respected. No one should meet such an end. Not even someone working for Jeremy.

“He’s pretty vague and confused. Looks like his latest adventure has gone wrong and it deeply affected him. J has already laid his hands on him. It wasn’t pretty.”

“So what do we do?”

“We have to help him out of here. For the rest, we’ll see that in time.”

Maya nodded. The mission was simple: help the Doctor to escape this place before Jeremy Backfire had full control on his case. They had been working here for years and had been trained to run from the worst situations. But it was always easier said than done. It would take some time and organisation.

x

“Don’t move!”

The adrenaline was pulsing in every vein of the nurse’s body. He was one of the three employees in charge of lunch today and it was pretty calm until this one guy quietly eating alone in his corner was being bothered by another patient. A blonde woman who had tried to have him speaking only to be rewarded with a _‘stop trying to be her!’_ and an empty plate straight in her face.

The nurse hadn’t been told about this new patient yet so he didn’t know how to handle the situation but one thing was sure: they had to disarm it before it went south for real. The other patients were feeling the adrenaline and fear and tension in the air and that was exciting them. They were ready for a fight. A deadly fight since the new guy had a shard of broken plate in his fist. He was holding it so tight that it had cut his hand. Blood was dripping on the floor but he didn’t seem to notice. Or to care.

“Put that down slowly, sir. No one will hurt you. We’re just here to help you.”

The nurse had a raised hand toward him, a universal gesture for ‘calm down’, but the Doctor didn’t see him. He was oblivious of everything around him. His eyes were staring at the ground before him but his sight was a blur. He was seeing the floor without seeing it, being physically in this hospital and mentally elsewhere. The Wolf was active. It was there at the moment but the Doctor’s eyes weren’t glowing gold like it usually did.

This blonde woman wandering around and trying to get him to speak had reminded him so much of Rose – though the woman had nothing in common with his companion – that it had triggered his fury. He had punished the woman and was punishing himself for not being able to get to Rose in time. She could be dead for all he knew and that was all his fault. And that new Doctor, why hadn’t he noticed that something was wrong?

The Wolf had intervened before it could get worse. It had used a card the Doctor ignored everything about. As Rose was the host of the other half of the Wolf, they were telepathically connected and nothing could break this bond between them. So the Wolf had connected him to Rose’s mind. It was enabling him to have a look at her mind, at her surroundings through her eyes. Pain struck him at the pink walls. She wasn’t in the TARDIS. It could have been a day off, a day visiting Jackie but he knew deep down that it wasn’t. Rose was back at home, back at her old life with Jackie.

Her sight was blurred. She was crying. When she looked down, he could see what she had in her lap. A notebook. It was closed and the cover was tear-stained. She had been crying for a while. She closed her eyes and the connection was broken. He was back in his own mind, back in this hospital. His fury wasn’t any better, but another emotion was dominating now: pain. The pain to know that Rose was at Jackie’s again, the pain to know that she was unhappy, the pain to know that the other Doctor had done nothing to get rid of the Wolf in her mind. He had cravenly left her behind and that was unforgiveable.

He was clenching his fists so hard that the piece of plate he was still holding was deeply sunk in his skin now. This pain didn’t matter. He was all too focused on another pain, on _her_ pain. It was unbelievable, unbearable and it was growing in him like a cancer. He suddenly leant his head backward and howled his frustration to the dirty white ceiling…


	5. Chapter 5

They had taken advantage of the fact he was howling his pain at the ceiling to catch him off guard and pin him down to the ground. He didn’t fight them when they did a body search, nor when they examined his hand. Their voices didn’t even reach him. All of his mind was focused on this image of Rose he had had. She was in a place she couldn’t call home anymore, with a mother who couldn’t understand what she was going through, and the only man who could have helped was gone. He felt so sorry and guilty for failing her. She trusted him, believed in him and he had let her down when she needed him the most. And he was here, in this place, unable to do anything. The fate was cruel. Throwing them on each other’s path only to separate them in the end. It surely was a revenge of some kind for destroying his planet and people.

Since he hadn’t been assigned to a new room by his therapist, he was escorted back to the isolation ward after they took care of his hand. It would leave quite a scar if the Wold wasn’t healing it totally. Not like it mattered in any way. This pain was nothing. He didn’t even feel it. It was his heart, his confidence: his ego that were suffering the most. His pain was psychological. Ironically, the persons supposed to help him with that were actually persons who hated him. By going back here, he was thrown back into the lion’s dent. Jeremy would ‘work’ on him again. What had been done to him; he hadn’t told the doctor Grieve. She had proved herself to be someone he could trust. He couldn’t help but be on alert. This could be a trick. After all, she had been trained by the Quiston Assassins and he wouldn’t be surprised to have a contract on his head.

She proved her worth once again when she managed to have him transferred into a low security ward of the hospital. She didn’t think he was dangerous despite his instability and she was giving him his own room. He also had the luxury of wandering around in the common room with other patients. A certain feeling of freedom and a perfect view on the different cases of mental illnesses. Himself was labelled as a patient with ‘dissociative identity disorder’. They added that he had three personalities, the dominant one being ‘the Doctor’. He was fine with that statement. It wasn’t exactly the truth but it wasn’t a lie either. Maxence should have gotten home alone. The Doctor and the Wolf weren’t supposed to follow. They should have stayed behind. And this was gonna cause him a lot of troubles.

The Doctor was curious by nature. Curious and always up for solving unsolvable mysteries. This place had a mystery he wanted to solve. He had already gathered information thanks to Nash and some eaves-dropping of his own. Jeremy Backfire has acquired the place the previous year, had created new rules and renovated the whole basement. A basement that was now inaccessible unless you had the accurate card for the reader. With the sonic, it would have been easy to get through the security. He could even have done a perception filter for himself. Instead, he made a fake ID card and swapped it with a real one he stole from one of the nurses under Jeremy’s orders. He was attentive to the nurses’ rounds. He wasn’t one to work with plans but he didn’t have much of a choice to stay under the radar. He couldn’t be found by anyone. He had to be as discreet as possible. Usually, he loved the unexpected but tonight, he was hoping for nothing unexpected to ruin his plans while he was nosing around.

Right after the 3am round, he sneaked out of his room – he had cleverly prevented it from being locked with a bit of paper – and went all the way down to the isolation ward. There were so many screams and despair and cries. His high sensitivity – was it the Wolf? – was making him feel uncomfortable and sick. The pain was pretty hard on him but he walked to the card reader and slipped the card in. The red light turned green. There was a distinct click and he could push the door open. Easy. It was too easy. The sound of his steps was muffled by his socks. He had gone without shoes for more discretion. The door shut behind him with another loud clock that sent chills all along his spine. He was immediately assailed by the bad vibes of the place. It stunk with blood, torture, sweat, excrements, despair… and death. Whatever Jeremy was doing here, it was nothing good. Whatever it was, the Doctor had to put an end to it.

He silently followed the corridor to a flight of stairs that took him deeper in the guts of this hospital. Drugs, alcohol, cigarettes. Pain. Sperm. Tears. This strengthened his determination to end Jeremy’s actions. This basement was huge. It was like another hospital under the real one. This floor was full of laboratories. The floor under was more interesting. All the rooms had different colours. All of them smelled like fear, blood, urine. No file left, no computer accessible. He was clever but it was too dangerous. It would take too much time and who knew what the security on those machines was? The last floor was full of rooms Well, cells. A lot of cells. Plenty of them were occupied and not by human beings. Jeremy Backfire was experimenting on aliens, torturing them to gather information about them and use them for his own twisted reasons.

“Enjoying the visit, Doctor?”

The Doctor froze. This voice could only belong to the owner of this place. Obviously, he had been watching him all along. Frightening how he could make his presence undetectable, even for the Time Lord’s enhanced senses. They weren’t as sharp as they used to be but they were still better than those of a normal human. He should have sensed him. Why hadn’t he been able to? Alien technology? It was possible; the Doctor hadn’t seen it all. Jeremy must have other hidden places where he as supervising his experiments. This basement was too well-organised to be a first try. There was practise and experience.

“Let me show you around.”

The threat sent shivers down his spine again and before the Doctor could say or do anything, a hand was placed on his mouth and nose while a pressure point was pressed on. Struggling was useless. He had already lost, was already out.

x

Nash had made it back home that night and was sleeping soundly when the ringtone of her phone resounded in the silence of her bedroom. It didn’t wake her up immediately. The caller was on their third attempt when she lazily reached for the ringing device. She could have refused the call without looking at the name on the screen but she chose to pick up instead. She pressed the phone against her ear and mumbled an ‘hello’. It was all they could get from her at this hour of the night. A broken voice replied to her. A voice that had been broken from screaming too much, from crying too much.

“Stay with me, Doctor. Stay on the phone. I’m coming.”

The Doctor remained only all along her drive to the hospital. The only thing that was comforting her about her patient was that Maya was with him. She was the one who gave the Doctor access to a phone. She was the one protecting him while she was gone. She was in the hospital within ten minutes but couldn’t find her friend, nor her patient. She was told that the big boss was waiting for her in her office. This couldn’t be good news. She rushed to her office. Jeremy was indeed there. He was casually sat in her chair with his feet on her desk. He was reading a file. The Doctor’s file.

“I told you his name was Maxence Spitz. The Doctor is a stupid title.”

“I’ve written it further down in the file. He is suffering from a personality disorder. A severe one.”

“Tell me more.”

“He’s your son. Don’t you know already about his mental troubles? He should have been diagnosed a long time ago.”

She was playing her trump card. Jeremy Backfire was Maxence’s father. An absent father who hadn’t seen his son in forever. Or had he? He hadn’t been surprised to see him here, nor to be the witness of his two other personalities. He had obviously been keeping an eye on him and hadn’t found any interest in him until now.

“Has he told you or have you figured it out by yourself?”

“Both.”

“I would be impressed but someone like you has to be clever to survive, am I right?”

He too had information on her. He was insinuating things and she had to be more intelligent than him. She wouldn’t take the bait. She would play dumb. No need to show him that he had hit a point there. She was on alert, more than usual. She was ready to fight if needed. She made sure not to be on the defensive, not to act like she was protecting herself. Poker face.

“We are all trying to survive in this world. We are thrown into life without any instruction book. We gotta learn how to live, to fit in. Not many can’t do that. That’s why we’re here.”

“Bollocks.”

Jeremy snorted and threw the file at her. She caught it thanks to her reflexes. They were better and quicker than those of humans. She wasn’t at her best though. She never was at her best here. It was a distraction. He was out of her sight now. Swiftly, he had moved and was standing behind her. He had his fingers on her neck, was unveiling the brand on her skin. The Quiston Calcium Assassins. She was discovered. Unless he didn’t know what it meant. Maybe she could make something up.

“I have one of yours downstairs. Well, two now.”

“What is this supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means.”

“I assure you that I don’t.”

“How did you get that brand?”

“Don’t you read the newspapers?”

“You don’t appear in the newspapers.”

“My name and picture don’t but the name of the group of assassins which name is on my skin is. They abducted me when I was young and branded me. Thank you for reminding me of those traumatising times, sir.”

She moved away from his nauseating touch but he caught her by the wrist and brought her back close – too close – to him. His eyes were so dilated that they were black when they stared down at her. He wasn’t gonna let her go. He wanted something from her. He rolled up her sleeves, revealing the numerous scars on her skin. Scars of a past she had tried to forget. In vain.

“I shouldn’t be here. I’ve come because one of my patients needed me.”

Jeremy did nothing for a moment and suddenly smiled. It would have scared her if she hadn’t had the Quiston training. This smile was terrifying. It was the one of a predator. One she might have worn in her past. He finally let go of her wrist but she didn’t have the authorisation to leave the room. There was something in his behaviour that told her she couldn’t.

“Yes. Maxence. I gave him the phone, and he sure needs a therapy now. Follow me.”

She did as told even though all of her self was telling her that it was a bad idea. He led her downstairs, led her to the staff quarters of last floor. He showed her what he qualified of her new office. This idea was making her uncomfortable. Just like the Doctor before, she could feel all the bad vibes of the place. Then, he brought her to Maxence. He was locked in a tiny cell, in a worse condition than he was previously. She was horrified of course, and Jeremy took advantage of this moment: she was immobilised and before she realised it, and before she realised it, an intense pain exploded at the base of her skull and she forgot everything.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was how it was written in their stories, but the Doctor had broken the rules and changed the lines. He was outstaying his welcome and keeping Maxence away from his family, from a life she should be living peacefully.

“Stay quiet.”

The Doctor’s voice and looks were so similar to his that Maxence was always left speechless whenever they had a meeting. It had happened quite a lot since Christmas. When Maxence had inherited of the Doctor’s legacy, the alien had come to him and had apologised for the mess, for throwing him in such a situation. His personality had become dormant for the Doctor to fully live this year and heal from his traumatising experience with war with a lovely blonde named Rose. It was how it was written in their stories, but the Doctor had broken the rules and changed the lines. He was outstaying his welcome and keeping Maxence away from his family, from a life she should be living peacefully. Instead, he was here, suffering from the apparent solitude of his mind, fully unaware that the Doctor was suffering through the torture his father was making him go through hoping to break him.

“Listen…”

The Doctor was gone into another one of his long monologues. He liked the sound of his own voice and Maxence had learnt how to not listen anymore. The Doctor had been impressive and intimidating at first but Maxence was no longer afraid of him, nor was he frightening by the silver wolf with black eyes prowling around most of the time. The reason for all this matter. The Bad Wolf. Maxence could handle such a power because the Doctor was in control but he wanted them all gone.

“Shut up!” he shouted. “SHUT.UP. You call that pretty boy you’re so angry at and you call him now! I don’t want to be involved in any of your shit anymore!”

“We’ve been trying to reach him.”

The silver Wolf was sat beside the Doctor. It would be weird if it was speaking like a human, like a species with a mouth and vocal cords. The voice was rebounding, echoing, on the invisible walls of Maxence’s mind. They had been sharing this tiny place for months. They were all walking on each other. This place was too small for the three of them. Especially if one was losing his temper.

“And?”

“It’s like he doesn’t get the distress signal.”

“Or he’s ignoring it. We can’t know for sure.”

“That’s not how it works,” retorted Maxence.

He had spent enough time hidden in his own mind to learn the basic things. He also had learnt a lot about Time Lords and about the Doctor himself. It wasn’t him who was deciding. It was the TARDIS and if she hadn’t done around, it wasn’t because she was ignoring them. She would never ignore them. It was forbidden to go back to a former incarnation. It could create paradoxes. But this situation was kind of an emergency. The ship should have come already.

“He should be here. If he isn’t, it means Backfire had a sort of scrambler on the place. Considering what he’s doing here. It’s not surprising. He’s your father…”

The move was so fast that even the Doctor didn’t see it coming. Maxence’s fist connected with his jaw. Once, twice. The Doctor was forced to defend himself and it became a fist fight between two beings who should be collaborating. The Wolf didn’t move. It only watched them fight like boys in schools’ yards. Maxence was having the upper hand but the Wolf soon got annoyed and intervened. Bounds immobilised the two of them. It didn’t stop them from glaring at each other.

“Let him see.”

Maxence was thrown to his body. He had forgotten how to move but it wouldn’t be of anything use. He was tied down to a metallic table, naked. There were noises and silence, fear and boldness, challenge and abandon. Numerous of other things too but his mind would never remember it. He was back in the mental common room. His mind was divided in three parts: his, the Doctor’s and the Wolf’s. Those three parts all met in that octagonal white room. They were stuck here until they figured out how to fix their situation.

Maxence was laying on his back in this octagonal room, breathless. The Wolf had taken him back here after he saw what he had to see. The muffled scream he had let out was the signal to extract him before any damage. He was much safer here. The Doctor was sat on the ground, away from them. Some would say he was sulking but Time Lords didn’t sulk.

“He stays in control not because he feels like it. He does it to keep you safe.”

An ordinary human like Maxence couldn’t handle what was being done to his body in this hospital. They would break him like a twig. Once the mind was out, it wasn’t long for the body to give in, to die. So it was better for Maxence to stay hidden in the corner of his mind. It would take longer to break the Doctor. There were so many more layers to his mind, to his personality.

Maxence kept silent after that. He was sat in his corner, minding his own business, but keeping his eyes and ears open. He wanted to know what was going on out there. The Doctor was protecting him. From what? The glimpse he had had from the Wolf hadn’t been enough to understand and every day, the Time Lord was coming back, rougher than ever, weaker and weaker with the time passing by. The shell was being broken. Slowly but surely. There were cracks and the Time Lord was holding the lapels of his wounds together. The Wolf wasn’t around to fix things. When it could fix them.

“Doctor, look at me.”

There was so much pride in this man that his first reflex was to push away any kind of help. Especially if it came from the human being he was holding prisoner unwillingly. He could deal with his pain and demons on his own. He always had. They had been in this psychiatric hospital for three months already. Three months. He was reaching his limits after three months. It was pathetic.

“You can’t help me,” groaned the Time Lord.

“The Wolf isn’t here! You know as well as me that it’s gonna shut off. It works just like the TARDIS when stuck in a human body. It told it to us itself!”

Maxence was angry at the Doctor for pushing him away all the time. He wasn’t just an ordinary human. The Doctor hadn’t settled down in his body randomly. He had _chosen_ him. There was a reason behind that and it certainly wasn’t because he was a weak human who needed to be protected all the time. The Doctor had been taking all the blows since they were here. It was about time Maxence did his part.

The Time Lord was in bad shape. Maxence couldn’t remember a day where he had been in such a condition before. Not even in his memories, but the most terrible had been kept hidden from him. The Doctor was keeping his secrets… secret, even to himself. He was afraid and ashamed of what he was deep down. A monster. A killer. The man who killed thousands and never found redemption.

“Rose…”

It was a murmur, almost a cry. Maxence had to place his ear close to the Doctor’s mouth so he could hear what he was saying. He was calling Rose obviously. He did that a lot in his nightmares and thoughts, when he was in a vulnerable condition. But he wasn’t asking for her this time: he was explaining him that Jeremy Backfire was leading experiences to get the Wolf out of him – which he absolutely couldn’t do without killing them. This is why he was doing every possible experience to exploit the energy. Blood and sperm mostly. He was still figuring out how to access their mind. But whatever he was doing or not doing, it wouldn’t change a thing. The Wolf wasn’t complete. It needed its other half – that was in Rose’s mind – to work properly. But no one was gonna tell them that. No one was gonna sacrifice Rose.

“I’m gonna find her. Do you hear me, Doctor? I’m gonna get us out of here and find Rose. I promise you:”

Maxence was determined. He would find this Rose Tyler the Doctor was in love with and they would find the other Doctor. Their situation was gonna get better. Maxence stood up, took a deep breath, and entered in position of his body.

He clearly hadn’t expected to find himself pinned to a wall with a hand around his neck, desperately needing air to survive. The Doctor was known to be able to hold his breath for a while. Was it a test? Were they trying to determine how much time he could hold on? The room had violet walls. It smelled like fear and sperm. He understood better what the Doctor meant.

The person whose hand was causing him asphyxiation to him was no other than Nash Grieve. The doctor who once had the esteem and a bit of trust from the Time Lord was now the person torturing him on Jeremy Backfire’s orders. Had she always been under his orders? Or had he found a weak point in her? He was very good at that. Maxence was well placed to know that. He could manipulate anyone into doing what _he_ wanted. Such a power in the hands of a man like him was dangerous.

Finally, the hand released his throat and Maxence collapsed in a heap on the ground, trying to catch his breath. He massaged his throat nonchalantly. He wasn’t gonna betray his identity. He was gonna be the Doctor and the Doctor was gonna be him. Temporarily.

“So that’s it? You lock me down here, you strip me from my DNA, take hairs, blood and sperm and you try to do something with it?” He scoffed. “Nothing is gonna work. You can’t play with the Wolf. It’ll bite your head off.”

Nash washed her hands. He could speak as much as he wanted. She wasn’t gonna change her mind. She had a mission to do and she would get what she wanted. If she didn’t, she would die. Or her friends would die. Just like the Doctor, she was only protecting her life and her friends’ lives. That was a battle she had been fighting all her life, and she was exhausted to do so now.

“Only you can help us all now,” she murmured.

She pressed a button. A contingent of selected nurses came in. They grabbed Maxence, undressed him, tried him down to the metallic table in the centre of the room. He couldn’t move anymore. The nurses left, Nash took her pants off and with horror, he understood what was the next step of this cruel game.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Doctor was standing in the middle of the corridor of this prison they dared calling a hospital. He was a bit off from all the drugs they had stuffed his body with to make sure he wouldn’t lash out on them. It had happened a couple times since he was here. They weren’t taking any risk anymore. He had harmed too many people."

The Doctor was standing in the middle of the corridor of this prison they dared calling a hospital. He was a bit off from all the drugs they had stuffed his body with to make sure he wouldn’t lash out on them. It had happened a couple times since he was here. They weren’t taking any risk anymore. He had harmed too many people. Those drugs wouldn’t have had any effects if he had still been a Time Lord but now, he was in a human body and his biology was weak. It couldn’t resist the mix of drugs it had been given. That was why he was standing so still and so silence when he usually was unable to stop bragging around. He had never been a man who staying in one place forever, but this time, no choice had been given to him. To get what they wanted, they had to master him and so far, only the drugs had worked.

He wasn’t alone in that corridor. Around ten nurses were surrounding him and forbidding him ever access he could have found to run away if he wasn’t so high. One of them was checking his restraints. He was wearing a black thick leather collar with a small steel ring around his neck. To that ring was fastened a solid chain. His hands and feet were locked into heavy steel bracelets. They were connected between each other with chains that were all fastened to the leather belt that was tightly clasped around his waist and to the chain on his neck. They weren’t taking any risk. After all, he was classified as a ‘high risk’ patient. ‘Prisoner’ would be a better word than patient. He hadn’t come here on his own. He had been caught and sent here. His curiosity had thrown him into the darkest secret of the place.

Except for Nash, he didn’t have many persons to talk and complain to. At first, she was nice to him and then, Jeremy had laid his hands on her and she had become his puppet like many others in this underground hospital. She was torturing him, against her will, and she was the only one he could talk to implicitly. It was one of the benefits to be the most feared patient of this hospital. They were all afraid of what he would do to them if he ever was able to think and free himself from his chains. It was one of the benefits when your therapy was done by the chief of the hospital himself. The man had a morbid interest in him because he was in his son’s body, because he had access to the purest power. The power to control Time. To control life and death.

“Walk,” ordered someone in his back.

An electrical stick was pressed against his back to push him forward. His chains jingled as he took the first step toward the yellow room. That was the first room where they were taking him. The yellow room to make him talk. The purple room for private stuff. The green room to submit him, force him to use a power that wasn’t his, a power he didn’t really have access to. The Doctor smirked to himself. It was gonna be fun all over again.

He walked, his mind as empty and numb as his body because of the drugs. He couldn’t walk fast because of the chains but they kept pushing him in the back to make him go faster. He said nothing. Now wasn’t the time, but he would get his revenge on all of them soon enough. They walked until they were in front of the yellow room. Nash was waiting for him as usual. He smirked. The wait was over.

“Ah, Doctor. Maybe you’ll be more cooperative today.”

He wouldn’t. He would resist. Like every day. The woman would have nothing from him. He was the Doctor. He had seen worse than these colourful rooms, worse than those stupid humans thinking they had him trapped in their stupid basement. He was a Lord of Time and a part of the Vortex was stuck in his mind. They couldn’t do anything against him but it was fun to see them try.

What was waiting for him in this room, he already knew. The first time, he hadn’t seen it coming and he had given them a real hard time. That was why they were drugging him so much and tying him up that way every time they were taking him out of his cell. That way, he wouldn’t attack anyone. He had already killed someone and it was one too many. It was a name to add on his long list and another load of guilt on his shoulders. The power of the Vortex was driving him mad and he wasn’t stable back then. He was now. More or less. Trapped in a human body with nothing to fuel it, the Wolf had soon become dormant. It hadn’t disappeared and it wouldn’t. It would wake back up in time.

They were trying to break him, trying to get the key to that power. He had been in such a situation once, but they were after his real name. The name of the man he was before he was the Doctor. Everyone knew that the Doctor was stealing faces and if you couldn’t kill him while he was an invulnerable Time Lord, you could reach him in his earlier life. If you killed his next face before the Doctor used it, you were rewriting Time and were making the Time Lord vulnerable and, consequently, easier to exterminate.

Here, that identity didn’t matter. If they were killing him, they were losing the Wolf, the Vortex, and the only way to find Rose Tyler, the second half of the power of Time. He wouldn’t tell them anything. What would they do once they had access to that power? Mr Jeremy Backfire and company would only use it to enslave the universe. Or worse.

Once again, he was tied down on that cold table, totally unable to move or defend himself, and sensors were placed on his forehead and temples. Nash threw the lot of nurses out and waited for the drugs to wear off her patient’s system – which was taking less and less time over the days: it usually was working for a longer moment on a normal human, but he wasn’t a normal human, not anymore – and when he was fully back to himself, she started her questions. She preferred speaking to a person with a clear mind.

“You know the game, Doctor. You lie to me and I press this button.” She pointed to the red button on her right. “The more you lie, the more you suffer.”

“I do understand very well what you want from me. It doesn’t mean I’m gonna give it to you. What would you do with that power? I’ve told you already that no one can handle it. I would kill you.”

“Alright then, _Doctor_. Let’s change the method.”

The emphasis on his name was unnecessary. It was always him, the Doctor, who was answering her questions. He would never let Maxence face the torture they were making him go through in this place. Nash was holding back though. She didn’t agree with these methods. She was here against her will. They were both prisoners, but she was on the better side.

“Oh, you’re changing your approach? Five months, two weeks, five days and two hours since you’ve locked me down here and you’re changing your approach just now? Have you found something interesting about me? Or are you just tired of being unable to break me? I can understand. I’m very hard to break. You’ll have to hit harder than that.”

“You’re the clever one in the room. That’s up to you to give me what _I_ want. What is the Wolf? Who is Rose Tyler?”

Again the emphasis was useless. It wasn’t her wishes to know how to use the power of the Wolf, to find Rose. She didn’t care about that. She only wanted to protect herself, her friends. If she could, she would have let him escape but Jeremy was on her back all the time.

The Doctor laughed. So many questions. Always the same. Oh, it was his fault. He had been found babbling deliriously in the streets by the police. The regeneration had gone wrong. He had had what he wanted. He was back on Earth where he would find Rose and tell her about the Wolf splitting in three. He had known it before his life as the Doctor was over, and he remembered it after the regeneration, but the Bad wolf was too much to handle for the human he had become again and he had gone insane. However, he had been meant to keep the Wolf in his mind. He wouldn’t have survived otherwise. But had Rose survived to the Wolf? Had the new Doctor helped her? From the glimpses of her life he had gotten, she was back to her human life but wasn’t suffering from the Wolf like him. It must be dormant.

“I don’t see what’s so funny, Doctor. I’m just here to help you. You kept on saying that you were the Doctor and that you had to find Rose Tyler before the Wolf burnt her. If we find out what this means, we will make a huge step in your therapy.”

“A therapy,” he scolded. “That’s how you call that? Drugging me, chaining me up, electrocuting my brain? That’s a therapy? I’d rather not know what you do to people who really are insane!”

“You’ll know it soon enough.”

“Oh, I’ll get a chance to see that? I feel honoured.”

His sarcasm was dripping through his words and it was annoying the nurse. She could do whatever she wanted to him – as long as it was fitting Jeremy’s orders – but he wouldn’t break and gave her what Jeremy expected from him. This man would have no answer.

“I’m gonna tell you the truth.”

“About time.”

“The Wolf is…” He paused and looked at Nash in the eyes. “an animal. It could be a legend too. A story. The Big Bad Wolf. Everyone knows about that one. Humans are very good at creating legendary creatures. You know, dragons, unicorns and all.”

This answer resulted in him getting an electrical shock. Nash was getting started. She didn’t like that but if she didn’t do it, it was her who would get punished. None of them wanted that. That was why she was doing it and the Doctor accepted it. The shock was light. It would get worse with the time passing by. But he wouldn’t break. He had seen worse than that.

“Nice! Nothing better than an electroshock to wake you up! Thank you very much. Now, what’s your next question?”

“I can’t wait for you to give up on all your bravery and lose your confidence.”

“You want me to fear you like everyone is fearing you in that hospital whether they’re patients or staff?” He laughed. “Never.Gonna.Happen.”

“We’ll see that. Later. For now, let’s summarize the situation. You say you are the Doctor…”

“I don’t say, I am.”

“Maybe, you’ve been here for almost six months now.”

“Five months two weeks, five days, two hours and thirty-three minutes.”

“Here’s my thought, Doctor,” Nash continued. “From what you’ve said, you’re an alien. Am I right?”

“From my point of view, you are the alien.”

“The Doctor, a Time Lord, some pompous title for a species that is watching over Time and Space, who can intervene in the biggest conflicts but never does because of the strict rules they have, is an alien, who totally looks like a human, who’s the only survivor of the Time Ward. He survived only because he’s a coward. Is that right?”

“So far, you are.”

At least, she had a good memory and she knew the subject. She had been a part of that war and he had – according to her words – saved her life by enabling her to run away from Gallifrey before he ended the war. One of the few people to know what he had done. One of the only people to thank him for losing everything that day. What a life achievement!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Nash shrugged. She had to pretend that she couldn’t understand the beauty of such a sacrifice. The concept of giving a life to save another should have been unknown to her as an assassin. Giving a life to save the one of the persons you loved was out of her reach though. She never had the chance to meet her soulmate but she had people she would die for."

“So, you’re fresh from the war. Damaged. Broken. Shattered. And you meet that girl. Rose Tyler. She’s showing you that life is worth fighting for. Traveling with her makes you feel alive again. Until her life is threatened. You sacrifice yourself for her to life.”

“Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Nash shrugged. She had to pretend that she couldn’t understand the beauty of such a sacrifice. The concept of giving a life to save another should have been unknown to her as an assassin. Giving a life to save the one of the persons you loved was out of her reach though. She never had the chance to meet her soulmate but she had people she would die for.

“But it doesn’t go as planned. You feel something is wrong…”

“No, that’s not how it went. I just realised I didn’t want to leave her or my ship.”

“Your time machine.”

“Oh, she’s so much more than a time machine.”

“A space ship.”

“You’re so far from the truth.”

“Anyway, the Doctor was gonna change into another man…”

“Yep. And I was gonna die. And I had that irrational and universal thought that I wasn’t ready to die, that there was more to live. I made the wish to be sent back on Earth to stay around the woman I love.”

“Even unsure that she would follow you?”

“She was left with a new man. She trusted me, my daft old face… He certainly was prettier and younger and funnier to make a perfect match with her but he still remained a stranger. What would you have done?” No response. “I wanted to stay in her life but I woke up in Manchester with that deep conviction that something was wrong.”

“Because you sensed that you had half of that Bad Wolf left in your mind.”

“And since I could feel the other half around, it meant Rose still had it in hers.”

“Which could be fatal to both of you.”

“You’ve got it.”

“So that Bad Wolf has quite amazing abilities. Meaning you’re some kind of superhuman now. You’ve got the control of Time and you can change whatever you want to. You’re also a telepathic being and you can access people’s mind and create a real mess in there. Change someone’s history, create false memories or erase it all.”

“That’s not exactly how it works. There are rules.”

“Who cares for the rules when you’re that powerful?”

“I have a consciousness. So does the Bad Wolf. You can’t use its power for personal or evil purposes. Time Lords made the rules. They engraved it in their genetic codes. Anyone meddling with Time would go mad.”

“Time Lords are megalomaniac. How could they not go against the rules?”

“Oh, some have tried. And they paid the price.”

“What about you?”

“I ran away from home as soon as I could. Their philosophy wasn’t for me. I had my own dreams.”

“What now?”

“I intend to leave this place, find my Rose and survive this almost human life. Quite boring, I know.”

“And the Bad Wolf?”

“I only possess a part of its power. I can’t do much. Need my other half to be able to really do something with that power. Unless…”

The Doctor voluntarily chose to stop his sentence there, to show a hesitation. Nash would get more curious if he wasn’t giving her all the answers. Or pretending to giving her the answers. He couldn’t forget that she was manipulated by Jeremy Backfire and that his goals weren’t clear enough. No need to give him what he desired by mistake. Better not give them Rose and the other half of the Wolf. He would die protecting them. Dying was exactly the card he was gonna play. So far, the Wolf and him had worked together but he was always in charge, except for some incidents that had happened now and then. The Wolf was remaining hidden for its own safety. I t was just fixing the damages Nash was creating to its human shell when she was done. He would have died a long time ago without this power, which ironically was also killing him.

“Unless what? Is there another card you wanna play? You think that talking all the way through that session will save your ass? We can’t even tell what’s true and what’s not.”

“It’s up to you to believe me or not. But just so you know, I am fully human and humans can’t handle the power currently stuck in my head.”

“Which means?”

“I’m slowly dying. The power is burning everything in me and you’re speeding the process up with your methods.”

Nash smirked. Maybe she believed him and was concerned for him deep down, but on the outside, she had to act like she didn’t. She had to pretend it was a trick when the doctor inside her wanted to check his words and save him. She couldn’t see it, the power burning his mind and causing rage fits and complete blackouts when he was alone in his cell. He was holding on pretty well so far but he didn’t have much time left. They would realise it soon enough.

“Nice try, Doctor.”

That new voice turned his blood to ice. Jeremy had been there all along the session and had witnessed their exchange. That explained why she was so tensed and acting like the Quiston Assassin she had once been. Well, you never ceased to be an assassin. You just learnt how to hide this part deep inside you. The Doctor was well placed to know that.

Jeremy was done with these games. Now was the time for round two. If the Doctor didn’t want to say the truth, he was gonna talk to his other self, the one he was keeping hidden all the time, and there was only one way to force him out. He came in the room and dismissed Nash who obeyed wordlessly. He pushed the machine to the maximum. However, the Doctor was strong and he resisted. Him and his Wolf were a powerful team. Powerful enough for Jeremy to fly off the handle. The yellow room wasn’t enough. He had to hit harder.

The Doctor was breathless. All his body was suffering from the electricity that had just gone through it. He laughed in Jeremy’s face instead of complaining and raging. He was rewarded with a punch in the face. It added more to his physical pain but didn’t affect his mood. He was determined not to let Jeremy win, no matter the cruel things he had in mind to torture him. It was certain that he wouldn’t like them at all.

Jeremy was furious. He turned around, opened a drawer and pulled out a needle. He checked the label on it. They had invented a special mix for him. One that wouldn’t wear off in the minutes that followed the injection. One that would keep him awake but unable to move or speak or think. The fluid was injected straight in his jugular vein and slowly followed the course of blood to spread in his whole body until there was nothing of him that could react to Jeremy’s threats.

When the Doctor was completely paralysed, Jeremy called a bunch of his subjects to transfer the patient in another room he had never seen before. It looked like an OR, with red walls. There was a metallic table in the centre where he was strapped down. He couldn’t move at all but they were taking no risk. His head was placed in a surgical vice? All around him, the walls and furniture were immaculate, sterilised. There was a whole collection of tools for surgery, all perfectly sterile and waiting to be used on a new Guinea pig. Behind the strong smell of bleach, there was the smell of terror, of blood, of urine. Many had been taken there before him and many had suffered from irremediable damages.

Today, the Doctor was gonna get familiar with the red room. Here, they weren’t gonna flood his brain with electricity. They were gonna go further. They were gonna explore the brain itself, for real. Jeremy Backfire was nowhere close to being a neurologist. That was gonna be a disaster.

“Well, Doctor, it’s about time we use brand new methods. Forget about the soft ones Nash was using on you. Now, I’m taking the control of your case.”

Jeremy slipped a finger down the collection of tools, seemingly looking for the proper one to choose. His mind was already set on the scalpel but making the choice last was playing on the Doctor’s nerves. Everything to make the unwavering man drop his mask of confidence he was wearing so proudly.

“See, Doctor, I want something from you and I’m ready to get it at any price.”

Jeremy placed his cold hand on the Doctor’s face and folded his ear to clear the way. The scalpel stroked his skin, just above the ear, and cut the tender skin deeply. Blood flowed and ran down his neck. Jeremy put the scalpel down, grabbed a drill and tested it. He pressed the trigger a couple times to make sure it was working. Then he drilled a hole in the Doctor’s skull. The patient was conscious. He was feeling everything and couldn’t defend himself or scream. A brain surgery without anaesthetics. It was gonna push him beyond his limits and forced the Wolf to come out. Exactly what Jeremy was wishing for.

He inserted a little sensor in the hole. The Doctor didn’t see it properly but he felt it. A sensor inside his brain. It could have been a sensor to monitor his brain’s activity but he sensed that it was for another purpose. Another method of torture that needed two holes and two sensors, one on each side of his head. He had been scared of death once. Right now, he surprised himself to think that it would be a relief. Jeremy wouldn’t give him that.

“Oh, now, you’re scared, big ears,” commented Jeremy, amused. “Excellent. That’s the right attitude. It means you’re gonna give me what I want.”

The Doctor did, and not because he chose to. Actually, he tried to resist as much as possible but being electrocuted straight in the brain was proved to be efficient as a torture method. The human abandoned the battle in less than ten minutes. The pain and death threat hanging above its host’s head compelled the Time Entity sleeping in his mind to come out and protect him. So far, it had been too weak to even show up but it had found out that feeding on the evil vibes and negative emotions that were filling this place was more satisfying than feeding on a Time rift like the TARDIS needed. Being in a human body didn’t only have drawbacks. It could now take control and show that damn man who was the real boss around here.

The Doctor’s eyes turned gold and a loud growl came from his throat. In the second, all the restraints and sensors vanished in golden particles and the Doctor, possessed by the Wolf, was on his feet. The cuts healed themselves. Jeremy stepped back, a smirk on his lips. He was scared of course. He knew partly what the Wolf was capable of. It was better not to make it angrier. It was mad enough at the moment.

“There you are.”

“Oh, so I’m the one you expected to see? You happy? Good. Because that’s the last thing you will ever have done in your miserable little life.”

The Wolf took another step toward Jeremy. It wanted to lay its hands on him and feel his body disintegrating as it erased him from time and space, as he reduced his whole existence to dust. It had been provoked, but it also had been given the strength to finally be in charge. Wiping Jeremy away would also wipe Maxence away and that wasn’t an option. It had to reduce Jeremy to nothing and yet, keep him alive. There was one simple way to have its revenge on him and run away from here to find the real Doctor.

“You think we didn’t plan it all? That we didn’t take any measure for the day you would come out again?”

“Oh, you’re getting clever.”

“Always have been.”

The Wolf snorted, “What do you want from me?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

“Pure politeness.”

Because the Wolf was already in his head and looking for the information it desired. Which wasn’t complicated. Humans were open books. They didn’t have any lock or any barrier to protect their minds. If they knew what was living among them, what was coming for them in the future, they would protect themselves better. At the moment though, it was an opportunity.

“Hm. Humans are predictable but you have the merit of being different. On some points at least.”

That hospital was only a façade. They were using this asylum to hide their real activities. Their basement had been turned into a lab and a prison for non-terrestrial species. The place was protected by all the human technology available at this time and it was doubled with some alien technology. They were capturing every alien specimen they could find and experimenting on them to get as much information as they could get. Worse than Van Statten and Torchwood. Jeremy had even offered himself some upgrades with this data. And one day, he had heard about the Doctor.

“You want me. You want my power to rewrite yourself. My power and my immortality. Basic.”

“I want the Doctor and I can’t reach him without you.”

“You want to use me to get him?” The Wolf scoffed. “The Doctor left me on Earth, stuck in the mind of his now human former self who didn’t want to die. Do you think he cares about the bomb I am? If he did care, he would have taken me out of here and you wouldn’t have known a thing about it.”

“He hasn’t come because he doesn’t know. We caught you before you could do anything and this place intercepts most of the calls. Telepathic or not. You did call him but if he got the message, he never came around.”

The Wolf clenched its fist and a golden glow travelled through his veins. The anger burnt in its hosts body and mind. If it had any limit, Jeremy would have crossed them. It was about time to break the man once and for all.

“You can’t have me or my power. I won’t let you. And if you want the Doctor to come, draw his attention with something big. Big ball of troubles. He loves that.”

“I don’t remember giving you the choice.” Jeremy wasn’t losing his impertinence. “I can’t do anything to neutralise you completely and force you to obey, but I can still break your human shell.”

“Go on, try.”

Jeremy smirked. The Wolf pressed a hand on his face to reduce his brain to a puddle of grey cells, to make a vegetable of him. It should have seen it coming but it was one of those grey zones. The moments always in flux. The ones where a decision needed to be made. And Jeremy had just taken his when the Wolf chose to attack instead of submitting. There was a whistle caused by a flying object and the Wolf felt a distinct sting in his thigh. A needle.

“YOU THINK IT’LL STOP ME?” it roared.

It was really mad now. It began the process of killing Jeremy from the inside. Its other hand grabbed his throat and lifted him from the ground. He was struggling against the hand strangling him, his feet dangling in the air, but his face showed a clear victorious expression.

“I was just the distraction,” he panted.

The door of the room flew open and someone shot five times. The Wolf roared louder as the five needles jabbed in its back. It let go of Jeremy to run to the person who had dared shooting it. But it found itself unable to move anymore. It was losing its power, its control and slowly being numbed by the drugs he had been given. The Doctor couldn’t take over for the moment so the Wolf fought. In vain. It fell to its knees, to Jeremy’s feet who was watching him with a victorious smile.

“I always get what I want, Maxence. You should know that.”

Those were the last words the Wolf could hear before it completely fell to the ground, beaten by the high dose of modified drugs they had shot him with. Nash would have a furious Wolf to deal with on their next appointment. It wasn’t gonna forget or forgive that. Jeremy would pay for that. Not from the cell. It wanted to face this asshole when it would get his revenge. Just for fun. It would carve it in its memories to never forget. It would laugh about it.

However, it would have to wait until later. The nurses chained up the Doctor’s body again and dragged him to his room. Since he was deeply asleep, they didn’t even bother carrying him. Dragging him was less tiring. They threw him in his cell and took away the chains before they left and locked the door behind them.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Wolf didn’t show up. The drugs had weakened the Time Entity. Worse than when they had weakened his human host. But the worst was yet to come. Indeed, his biggest problem wasn’t to see no one. It was quite a relief actually. He could be in peace in that tiny cell that stunk like Hell."

The Doctor woke up a few hours later. He was feeling groggy and nauseous. He tried to get up but his limbs weren’t responsive. He slumped back on the floor. Waited a couple minutes. Or hours. Tried to sit up. His mind was clouded, he couldn’t think straight. Whatever they had drugged him with this time, it was a strong one and it wasn’t wearing off easily. He groaned and rolled on his side so he wouldn’t choke on his vomit if he was sick. His head bumped against the foot of the busted bed. Pain exploded; black dots filled his sight. He stayed still. That was for the best. Stay still and wait until he felt better.

He had expected Jeremy to attack again on the next day. He didn’t see him, nor any of his pets. Nash didn’t even come. Jeremy was certainly keeping her away. Isolating the patient when he was gonna need help was a strategy to have him getting desperate. Deprived from food, water and from a person checking on him while he was recovering from torture and a strong dose of drugs was dangerous but it could be worse. The Wolf didn’t show up. The drugs had weakened the Time Entity. Worse than when they had weakened his human host. But the worst was yet to come. Indeed, his biggest problem wasn’t to see no one. It was quite a relief actually. He could be in peace in that tiny cell that stunk like Hell.

No, his biggest problem was the drugs. Lately, they had taken him out of his cell regularly. Scared of what he could do, they were drugging him to make him as innocent and soft as a kitty. His body had developed an addiction to those substances and now he was gonna get detoxified the hard way. For days, he was as sick as a dog. He was vomiting and trembling and sweating. Whenever he was getting a bit of sleep, he was dreaming of Jeremy getting what he wanted; of him torturing Rose to get him; dreaming of all the bad adventures when he was traveling through time and space. He was dehydrated and in a rough shape. However, he never begged for water and food. Not even meds. He handled it all by himself.

When someone finally opened the door days later, he was lying on his side on the cold dirty ground. He was barely awake. He didn’t move at all – couldn’t really – when he was kicked in the ribs. Not even a sound. There was a laugh that would have given the chills to anyone able to react and he was chained up again. No drugs. What did they have in store for him this time? Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t gonna please him. Someone pulled him up. He was so weak that he couldn’t stand on his own. He collapsed on the person beside him, closed his eyes.

The walls of the room he was in were pale lilac. He smiled. It reminded him of the flashy pink of Rose’s walls in Jackie’s tiny flat. The woman would never know how many nights he really spent in that room with Rose, how many nights he had spent, sat in the dark, watching Rose sleeping. Humans needed a ridiculous amount of sleep. It was annoying. He was always so bored when she was sleeping. He could have gone on an adventure alone but it was better with two. He couldn’t stand solitude anymore. Having Rose by his side was all he desired.

“You look rough, Doctor.”

This time, he was the one lying in a miserable condition with a glassy look and block up ears and she was the one sitting on the edge of his bed with a mocking smile. She was getting her revenge for all the times he had mocked her for her weak condition.

“Time Lords don’t get sick.”

“You’re gonna tel me you’re burning up because of your superior biology?”

“My body adjusts its temperature.”

“You just forgot that you’re human now.”

The Doctor blinked. It was true. Even with a part of the Time Vortex in his mind, he remained an ordinary human who was vulnerable to every germ. Rose had a strong immune system. She wasn’t falling sick that much. But she was always in a rough shape whenever her period hit. Something he would never understand.

“You have to wake up, Doctor.”

Her voice was an echo. Yet, she was just beside him. Her hands were touching his naked body respectfully. Caring gestures: a hand on his forehead to check for fever, a hand holding his. She cleaned his face with a cold wet rag. Everything he would have done for her.

“You wouldn’t miss the birth of this new star! Come on, Doctor. It won’t happen for another trillion years.”

“What do you know about stars, little human?” he croaked.

“More than you if you sleep for another full day.”

“I do not sleep. I meditate.”

“It’s time to wake up now.”

He opened his eyes reluctantly. The walls were grey and the bed was more comfortable than usual. He scanned the surroundings. There was no one around. The place was unfamiliar. It wasn’t Rose’s room, not even his. There wasn’t the usual hum of the TARDIS. He wasn’t in his ship. He slowly sat up. His body was still but it didn’t hurt. Not anymore. Strangely, he felt quite good. Exhausted as if he had gone through Hell and back, but good. He laced around the room. The only way out was locked. The other door was the door of a bathroom. A very tiny bathroom. He was wearing a white cotton outfit.

“You have gone through a terrible week. I understand that you might be confused.”

He turned around. There was a woman in the room. He hadn’t even heard the door. He was disappointed to find out it wasn’t Rose. The woman was older. She was relieved to see him awake. He was supposed to recognise her. His mind was making attempts to send him signals. He rubbed his face, tapped his forehead with his thumb but nothing came. Nothing until she put a hand on his shoulder. Her aura hit him. She was not a human being. She was a shapeshifter, and one of the most dangerous.

“I don’t know what you’ve done to Jeremy but he has left after your last meeting and hasn’t come back yet.”

Jeremy. The flash of a man looking just like him. But in his eyes… nothing but the darkness. A dark void. The devil in person. Or almost. He was there to hunt the Time Lords and steal their secrets, their technology, their longevity. Other species had just been a funny exercise but now was the time to beat the final boss. If you could find the secrets of the universe’s keepers, you would be unstoppable. But the Wolf had preferred ruining his brain than giving in.

“Where’s Rose? What has he done to her?”

He moved away from her touch. He was uneasy around her. His mind was trying to retrieve his missing memories. Rose was there. She had been taking care of him. She had been talking to him. Or had they made him believe she was there? Had they brought her here and taken her away from him?

“She’s not here,” answered the woman. “She has never been here. Your friend… you’re keeping her safe. You refuse to tell Jeremy where she is.”

The Doctor remained silent. His brain was overwhelmed with thoughts. It was too much. The woman gently led him to the bed and forced him to sit down before he felt bad. The last few weeks had been hard on him. He should go slow. She didn’t want him to dive back. He was still recovering.

“They initiated your detoxification. They were planning on giving you drugs again when you’d be the most vulnerable. But you ruined their plans and I stepped in. Brought you up here, helped you through. You’ve been hallucinating.”

“I do not hallucinate.”

“With the fever you had, you definitely were.”

“Why am I here?”

“You won’t be here for much longer.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. Her tone was determined. She was gonna get him out of here. Today. He just needed to trust and follow her. Jeremy was away and she had distributed laced coffees to his pets. The path was free from obstacles but they had little time. She took him all the way down to the basement, to the deepest core of this asylum. His mind was flashing memories he had tried to forget. The yellow room, the purple room, the red room. All rooms of torture. That was why he hesitated to enter the green room. It was pretty naked compared to the others. Just a table with a computer and headsets to monitor a brain’s activity. He had come here before. Once or twice. This was all a blur.

“We will make them believe that we did a monitoring session.”

She was already working on launching the computer and headsets. She wanted a telepathic conversation with him but couldn’t do it freely. This room was the only way to do it without suspicion. The wolf inside him trusted this woman, this Nash, so the Doctor stepped in, placed the headset on his head and let Nash connect him to the system. There was a whole recording room behind the green room. Nash was fake-recording. She had gone through this process before. Not here, but it had happened.

The Doctor let her in his mind and she was surprised by the nakedness and austerity of the place. She had expected it to be livelier, more colourful, but it was just a dark room with locked doors. There were two men. They were identical. A perfect copy of each other. One of the them was the Doctor, the other was Maxence. One was asleep in a corner, the other was standing straight, his arms folded on his chest, next to a silver Wolf. From the look in his eyes, he was the human host and not the Time Lord. Another surprise.

‘The Doctor has been off for a long time,’ he explained. ‘It has been me all along.’

‘You were convincing. No one noticed anything.’

‘We share the same memories. I know everything about him and he knows everything about me.’

‘You all played your cards wonderfully but we don’t have much time. We need to talk.’

Her gaze was on the Wolf. It was the one in charge there. None of them blinked when Maxence collapsed to the ground. The Wolf had temporarily neutralised him to have a proper conversation with Nash. She was right. Maxence had done a fantastic job at taking the Doctor’s place. The two of them were the two sides of the same coin. That was why Maxence had been chosen to be the incarnation of this Doctor who survived the Time War. He was a strong man who had survived the worst in human terms, who had handled the burden of the Doctor like no other would have been able to. It was time to reward him for all the sacrifices he had made for the sake of the universe…


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The threat was still in his mind. He was aware he had to move. His body had reached its limits and it needed time to recover from the long run he had just done. He touched his head and looked at his fingers. They were covered with blood. He must have a cut on his head from hitting the metallic ladder. He would be in pain if he wasn’t so charged with adrenaline. An adrenaline that was fading away. His body was shutting down. It needed rest. It wasn’t the moment. He had to jerk out of this condition, to fight the darkness. Nothing was responding anymore. It was a battle he lost."

Maxence was running along a never-ending corridor. No, it wasn’t a corridor. It looked more like a tunnel dug in the raw stone of the earth. The ground was inequal. He was tripping with every step. He never stopped. Running was keeping him alive. How he had ended up here, he had no idea. He had to run, run for his life. If he fell, if he slowed down, what he was running from would catch him and it would be over for him. Death was waiting for him if he didn’t run. This tunnel was dark. He couldn’t see a thing. He couldn’t the end of it. For how much time had he be running? His heart was pounding to the rhythm of his steps; his lungs were on fire; his feet hurt and a stitch was ripping his side apart.

Fear was giving him wings. The landing was brutal. His bare feet got caught in the root of a tree that was coming out of the ground. There was no way he could not fall this time. All of his weight was transferred to his shoulder when it hit the ground. There was a pop and a flash of pain. His body rolled on the harsh earth. His head bumped against something metallic. For a moment, he was so stunned that he couldn’t do anything for a couple minutes. His ears were ringing; his head was throbbing. He would have a large bump on his forehead and a bruise twice its size. His shoulder certainly was dislocated. Yet, he couldn’t stay here. Panic was anchored in his heart and was urging him to move.

His hand clutched the metallic tube his head had bumped into. He made a guess of what it could be by feeling. A ladder. It was a ladder. He pushed himself up on his feet, climbed on the first rung. The ascent was long and difficult. His hand was barely responding and making it almost impossible to climb the ladder. It felt like forever and suddenly, his hand hit a plain and hard surface. He pushed it. What was a hatch moved. A faint light sneaked in the tiny opening. He completely pushed the heavy metal plate away and dragged himself out of the damaged asphalt. Breathless.

The threat was still in his mind. He was aware he had to move. His body had reached its limits and it needed time to recover from the long run he had just done. He touched his head and looked at his fingers. They were covered with blood. He must have a cut on his head from hitting the metallic ladder. He would be in pain if he wasn’t so charged with adrenaline. An adrenaline that was fading away. His body was shutting down. It needed rest. It wasn’t the moment. He had to jerk out of this condition, to fight the darkness. Nothing was responding anymore. It was a battle he lost.

A drop hit his forehead. He blinked. A couple of other drops hit his face. It was raining. Just a little. It was still night. He was still in that street. He pulled himself together, cried out and grabbed his shoulder with a hand. His fingers crisped on the skin. The pain was vivid, breath-taking. Beside that, his arm was completely listless, numb. Worrying. He had to move, to find someone. He had to find help. With all the difficulties of the world, he scrambled to his feet, reeled dangerously and he walked. The sun was rising behind the heavy layer of dark grey clouds. People were waking up. Many of them came across his path but no one gave him a minute of attention. He was just another tramp walking down the streets. He had no idea of where he was going. He was just walking aimlessly. On his third day of wandering, he collapsed in a gutter full of water. He was numb from the cold. It had kept raining in the last few days and London was drowning under the waters of both the sky and the Thames.

The little boy was struggling against the strong hold of his father. Furious, the man had grabbed him hard by the flesh of his neck. So hard that his nails were like claws digging in his skin. He carried him through the house like this. The boy was crying and yelling but nothing could bring pity to this man. Not even the loud cries of the son he was frightening. The only thing he had asked for was a bath. When he was alone with his mummy, she was giving him a bath, and they were having fun with his toys. But being alone with his father was a whole different story. He had asked for a bath. He was gonna have a bath. However, this wasn’t one he was gonna enjoy.

The water was barely warm when he was plunged into it. His father had grabbed him by his shirt and was now pressing on his head to keep it underwater. He eventually released it. The boy gasped, breathed deeply, taking as much oxygen as possible. His father was already plunging his head back underwater and no matter how hard he was struggling, there was no way he could escape this torture. He was growing tired and holding on was harder and harder. His lungs burnt and his limbs were heavy. And suddenly, the relief. Two warm and strong hands pulled him out of the water. His waterlogged clothes were dripping heavily on the ground and he was badly trembling.

“Are you insane?” a woman’s voice screamed. “He’s not even two! He wanted his daddy to give him a bath. Not to drown him!”

A door slammed. The woman tightly wrapped a towel around the little boy. She knelt down and finally he could see her face. His mummy, Joanne, had come to his rescue.

The face was carved in his memory when he woke up coughing his lungs out. A complete stranger who was as soaked as he was had dragged him out of the gutter and resuscitated him before he drowned in the dirty water like many other poor souls. He didn’t take the time to look at that person. He just gathered his tall skinny body the best he could and ran. They could have saved him only to inflict him more pain. Maybe they were part of the threat purportedly following him. Plus, he knew where he had to go now. He had a safe place, a safe person to go to and each of his steps were accompanied by this thought, by this face he desperately needed to see.

The house was there, standing fiercely in the pouring rain and striking wind. It hadn’t changed at all. Or maybe did it look duller than usual. It could be the weather giving him that perception of things. Or it could be his mental state. But he was so relieved and happy to have found his way home that it didn’t matter. He knocked once, twice. Perhaps did he frankly hit the door repeatedly with the palm of his hand. The result was the same. He got an answer. A woman with brown hair that was going on a greyish white – more than he recalled – opened the door. She looked straight at him, observed him from head to toes, from toes to head as if he was a random stranger in a distressed outfit, a random stranger she yet would have recognised anywhere despite the rags, skinniness, long hair and beard.

“Mom,” he croaked. “I finally made it back home.”

Exhaustion only allowed him this short interaction with the woman who brought him to life and saved it many times after that. He collapsed in his arms. Fear had left him. He was saved. He was protected. He was _home_.

x

Tegan Spitz entered the small kitchen of the family house and let himself fall on the chair facing his mother’s. The poor woman looked more tired and sad than ever. The last two years had been hard on her and she seemed to have considerably aged in this period. Not that it was a surprise. Her only blood-related son had gone missing without a trace two years ago and all her efforts to find him – police, private detectives, flyers, interviews, calls for witnesses – had all been vain. No one had seen her son – only a man looking just like him who was popping up here and there across the world. She had fallen into a cycle of depression and guilt to have been unable to protect him. And she had been clinging to the hope that Maxence would come back one day.

Tegan was Maxence’s young brother, only by a couple months. Contrarily to him, Tegan had been adopted by Joanne when he was seven. All thanks to Maxence. The two of them had met in school. Tegan was the victim of a constant bullying. One day, Maxence had witnessed his bullies beating the shit out of him and ran straight to the fight. Alone against four kids, he stood no chance but that didn’t stop him. He was punished for that, by his teacher and by his mother. He always said that it was worth it. The two of them had become inseparable and for his seventh birthday, Maxence had asked Joanne a particular gift: he wanted her to adopt the orphan who had become his best friend, his brother. Joanne had made sure it really was what he wanted and on his seventh birthday Joanne started the process of adopting him. It took many months to pass all the tests and interviews and get all the papers but on the Christmas of the same year, Tegan Smith the orphan became Tegan Spitz the loving son and brother. And their home became a safe place for foster kids.

“It’s really him?”

Joanne knew that it was her son lying on the couch in the living-room but her judgement was clouded by the strong hope that he was back. Nevertheless, Tegan rubbed his tired face and acquiesced. There was no doubt. The man on the couch looked like a stranger but he was his brother. Maxence had come back home after over two years of absence.

Tegan was the first person Joanne had called. Maxence had always been indecisive about what he wanted to do as a job but Tegan had the dream of working in the field medicine. He wanted to be a doctor. This thought had been haunting him all of his life and he had achieved his dream: he was a G.P. and he was really appreciated by his patients.

Maxence had followed him on this path and had completed the first years of studies before banishing into thin air. He was going for the psychiatric field. He was more interested in the human psychology than in their physical troubles. He was brilliant at that and would have been an amazing therapist if he hadn’t gone missing.

“How is he?”

“Not great, I’m afraid,” Tegan sighed. “On the physical area, it’s not brilliant. Lost a lot of weight; has an incredible collection of bruises, cuts and scratches too. All recent. A dislocated shoulder that had started to heal. His feet are seriously infected. It’s a miracle he was even able to walk back home.”

“He said nothing. When I bathed him. He didn’t cry or make a sound. He was in pain and he kept silent.”

“Mom…” hesitated her son. “Wherever he was, someone had hurt him, badly. You probably saw the scars.”

“Yes, I did.”

Maxence had a small long healed scar behind each ear. Each temple wore the marks of recent burns. The rest of his body was marked by countless other tiny scars. Her boy must have gone through Hell. No wonder why he was so relieved to be back home where he knew he would find safety and protection.

“I put his shoulder back in place and immobilised it. I cleaned and bandaged his feet. Can’t do much more. Keep him warm and in bed. I’ll come and change the bandages every day. Feed him, comfort him. Maybe he’ll speak when he’ll feel better.”

“He hasn’t spoken to you either?”

“He replies to my questions. Short answers. He strained to remember his own name, but perfectly knows our names and what we are to him. Can’t tell the year we’re in and seems to have no idea of where he was or what has happened to him. He’ll need a therapy. He only demands after you.”

Requesting her presence was an euphemism. As soon as she was back by his side, he refused to let her go, even for a second. He was taking her hands and placing them on his face, leaning in her touch. He was craving her comforting and warm touch and the sound of her voice. She was being careful not to hurt him, left him only to prepare some soup to feed him and came back immediately. She used a camp bed to lie down beside him. None of them slept much that night. Joanne took care of him, Maxence was afraid that all of this could be just a dream. Afraid that the monsters hunting him down might still be around to get to him…


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She had prepared herself for the worst. The nights of no sleep because Maxence was waking up yelling from the fears of the monsters hiding in the dark, she knew that. She had gone through that already, when Maxence was younger. They were a signal of a deep trauma buried deep in his memories, a trauma he could remember only when his consciousness was off."

Joanne took a couple of days off to stay home with Maxence. They wouldn’t find a replacement so quickly and she hated putting them in such a situation at the last minute. However, Maxence was her priority. He had always been her priority. Even if he hadn’t been as broken as he was at the moment, she would have taken days off just to be with him. He had been gone for over two years and it had been the worst period of her life. Losing her little boy was what she had always feared, especially in his youngest years. She wasn’t meant to keep him. The pregnancy hadn’t been planned. It was too late to abort. She had gone to the end of the pregnancy, survived her husband’s anger, the violence growing in him. She was supposed to give birth anonymously, to offer her baby to adoption services. It never happened. The nurse who had helped her through the labour didn’t know about her choice; she had put the little boy on the newly mother’s chest. And when her eyes met Maxence’s big blue eyes, she had fallen in love again.

Jeremy had never come to see her while she was hospitalised. She named her son Maxence Jonas Spitz. Maxence and Jonas were the names of her father and of her brother. The first had given his life in the Troubles in the 1970s and the second had died from a bad pneumonia. Her mother had held on until Joanne was independent and succumbed to a cardiac condition after her marriage with Jeremy. None of them got to know Maxence. A ‘gift’ Jeremy would have loved. Joanne had nowhere else to go but to the house she was sharing with him and when he had seen the baby… That was when his behaviour had definitely changed. They had been married for two years or so. A child hadn’t been in their immediate projects and Jeremy had hated him from the start but he wasn’t a monster. Yet. He had taken his rage out on his wife and had beaten her for every reason he could find. It wasn’t until Maxence was over one year old that Jeremy definitely became a monster who could lay a harmful hand on a child.

Maxence was just over two and was suffering from a gastroenteritis. Joanne was working late and Jeremy had to deal with his son. He had chosen to go to the pub instead and had come home drunk. Joanne had found her Maxence home alone, all curled up in his vomit in the bathroom. She was tired but she had cleaned him up and put him to bed. And she had fallen asleep in the rocking chair at the foot of his bed. She hadn’t heard him getting up, hadn’t heard him bumping into his father and vomiting on his shoes. She had only heard the fury and the belt, had intervened but couldn’t prevent the end of this night: her son, her beautiful son, lying on the ground, unconscious, bleeding out. She had thrown Jeremy out and carried Maxence to the closest hospital where he remained in a coma for nine long days. So far, he hadn’t shown any of the symptoms the doctors had told he would. But his life wasn’t over. It could still happen.

She had prepared herself for the worst. The nights of no sleep because Maxence was waking up yelling from the fears of the monsters hiding in the dark, she knew that. She had gone through that already, when Maxence was younger. They were a signal of a deep trauma buried deep in his memories, a trauma he could remember only when his consciousness was off. She had asked him once he was calmed down and nothing could come back to him. He was only left with confusion and frustration. And questions. An awful lot of questions. With zero answers. Every day, she was watching him being lost and winded when he woke up, craving for her touch, for her comfort. His recovery would take some time.

During one of his naps, on her last day off, she called the police to inform them that Maxence had found his way back home. She didn’t mention his condition, his mental health. She just told them that they could drop the researches: he was back from a long trip away from home. They would have a few questions for him, questions she would give him the answers to. She would invent them, just to protect him. She wanted to know what had happened to him but she didn’t want him to go through a stressful inquiry with the police putting pressure on him to get their answers quicker. It was clear that he had been a prisoner of some sort but no one had asked for a ransom. They had kept him for a particular reason and it was buried deep down in his subconscious, so deep that he himself didn’t have access to it.

“I was away from home for a humanitarian mission. Shortly after I arrived, I had an accident in a remote area of the world and couldn’t communicate with anyone anymore. I suffered from a severe concussion that had left me unconscious for days. I couldn’t remember my name when I woke up and the meagre medicine knowledge of this village couldn’t do much to relieve me from my confusion and pain. It took me months to recover, to have my memories coming back slowly. Mom had no idea of where I was and how she could reach me. Eventually, I remembered home and immediately headed back by all means.”

Maxence greedily drank the glass of fresh water his mother was giving him. He hadn’t spoken this much in a long time. He would be silent for a while after that. He certified that his words were true by signing down the paper an officer was showing him. His signature was messy and almost unrecognisable but just a simple cross would have been enough to them. They had their statement, had seen that he was there and alive. Their inquiry was officially over.

Joanne thanked them for coming over, for all the work they had done to help her finding her son, and led them back to the front door. Maxence was alone in the living room for a couple minutes. He wasn’t moving much from the couch because of his feet. He was getting up only for the bathroom and for eating. And the bathroom was exactly what he needed. He propped himself up to his feet, put a hand on the top of the couch’s back for his balance. His feet were healing but they still hurt badly. He took a step forward, tripped over the coffee table and lost his balance. The glass and empty cups clinked at the violence of the shock, the pain burst in his tibia and he tried to catch something to stop his fall. It was inevitable though and soon he found himself lying among bits of broken wood and porcelain. Not a sound came out of his mouth.

“Dear Lord, Maxence!”

Hands were palpating his body, pushing away the wood and porcelain to avoid him from getting more hurt than he already was. He had just fallen on table and it broke under his weight. There wasn’t an important loss of blood or a bit of anything deep in his skin. It was a good sign.

“Why did you get up, honey? What did you need?”

His answer came in the form of hands cupping her cheeks clumsily. He needed a couple attempts and her hands leading his to finally reach her face. Something was wrong with him. Something they hadn’t seen so far. Seen being the key word in that statement.

“I can’t see,” he stammered.

His bottom lip was trembling. He repeated the words again. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see but everything was so blurred that it was as if he couldn’t see a thing. That was why he had tripped over the coffee table and fallen on it. It hadn’t been this serious a few days ago but now it was just as disabling as his memory loss and wounded feet.

Tegan confirmed that his sight was miserable and managed to get an appointment with an eye doctor the next morning thanks to his work relations. Joanne couldn’t accompany them as she had to go back to work. She couldn’t be absent any longer so Maxence had to rely on his brother. He trusted Tegan but felt more comfortable around his mother in times of such distress. The eye doctor confirmed Tegan’s diagnosis: Maxence’s sight was terrible. It had seriously deteriorated over the two years he was gone. He used to have such a great sight before, and it was all gone to the sewers now. And he was sequestered at home until he could get his glasses. He was back to the couch, back to doing nothing and being in pain. At first, he was refusing the pain medicine Tegan had prescribed him. He was under a close watch. His mother and brother were checking on him every hour. He had to answer the call on the landline phone.

After a few weeks, their attention became less important. He was home and doing okay. He was studying the notes he had taken during his course at the university. He would eventually go back to it when he would be emotionally better and psychologically stable. Which he wasn’t. He was still suffering from nightmares and panic attacks but he often dreamt of a blonde woman. These dreams were more pleasant than the nightmares. They made no sense though and only happened when he was alone. More problematic when his mother was home. Whether she was awake or not, he felt very uncomfortable to masturbate under her roof. It was like being fifteen all over again. Consequently, after he was initiated to going back outside and being socially comfortable again, he decided that his masculine needs would be taken in charge by someone else.

They were all small blonde with a strong Londoner accent. The accent of people who lived in the poorest districts of the London. Yet, it wasn’t the accent he was looking for, nor the blonde he was looking for. He didn’t know her name and her face was fading away when the meds weren’t working anymore, when the pain was awakening. Pain in his head, pain in his heart. He wanted to yell and knock his head against the walls. Every woman he had slept with, every prostitute he had paid, had called him nuts. He had threatened some, choked others. They were all unable to satisfy him entirely, or to help him. Well, until he met Amy. Amy was different from the other blondes, different from the woman he was looking for. You wouldn’t have thought such a clever and soft woman would hide behind the mess of a junky, behind a woman lost to the world. She was hiding behind provocative clothes, covers of make-up and a flirtatious behaviour.

“You should try.”

She sniffed a white line of powder, blocked her nostril and exhaled her relief was Maxence was boxing a wall to feel better. She prepared another line, rolled up a note and and held it out to her friend. Maxence hesitated. He never did hard drugs. He only smoked weed when he was in secondary school. But he was out of pain medication and Tegan hadn’t found a reason to prescribe him more desire his frequent migraines where he could only hide in the deepest obscurity and the greatest silence.

“It helps with the pain.”

Maxence didn’t need more arguments to be convinced. The pain was driving him mad and anything said to relieve him from it was welcomed. He took the rolled bill, followed Amy’s advices and sniffed the white line of powder. It tickled and burnt his nostril. Any pressed on it and forced him to breathe deeply for the drug to hit faster. And when it did: he collapsed backward on the cheap motel bed, his pupils completely dilated, his mind free of pain and gone to a world he couldn’t reach without the help of strong chemicals…


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I’ve tried contacting you with the telepathic connection the Wolf is providing us with. Many times. It’s a Time Lord ability as well. We can get in contact with everyone sharing a connection with the Vortex. I never got an answer. I guess the Wolf is dormant in you. That’s good. It’ll save you from the madness I went through after the regeneration. I was convinced this would kill me. Turns out I’m still alive."

My dear Rose,

I have to apologise for how long it took me to remember you and what you mean to me. When I arrived in Manchester last year, I was highly confused by the power running through my brain and burning me. It was killing me, and my only thought was for you. Humans are made to handle the power of the Vortex. No one is. I panicked. I ran to you, got kicked out by you mother. I’ve been arrested and sent to this mad place they dare calling a psychiatric hospital. They locked me in there for months and made me forget everything about the Wolf, about the Doctor, about **_you_**. I can’t remember what they did to me but whatever they did, my mind blocked the memories. There’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I’ve seen frightening things. Things that had forced the Wolf and myself to retreat so our host could get back to his life. We thought it would be easier for him if we were dormant. Turns out it’s not. His subconscious brings us back to him but he can’t get a proper hold on us.

I have no idea what this new Doctor could have told you about the regeneration. Something about cells rewriting themselves to create a new body. That’s the usual story, but it’s all a lie. The truth us that Time Lords steal bodies. We meet a lot of people throughout our lives and when time comes, we pick the one we like the most and our being is transferred into this body. Like a data transfer. You’ll understand in a few years. My name is now Maxence, Maxence Spitz. I have lived in Manchester in my younger years. I am living in London today. This is a long story. I shall tell you everything about this man, about why I’ve chosen him among the billions of other people I could have picked, but that would be too long. I don’t have much time.

I’ve tried contacting you with the telepathic connection the Wolf is providing us with. Many times. It’s a Time Lord ability as well. We can get in contact with everyone sharing a connection with the Vortex. I never got an answer. I guess the Wolf is dormant in you. That’s good. It’ll save you from the madness I went through after the regeneration. I was convinced this would kill me. Turns out I’m still alive. I suppose the presence of the Vortex in me had changed my DNA. Hopefully, it will change yours too. Hopefully I’ll find you before your part of the Vortex awakes. Your mother won’t be able to help. Only I can help you if he’s not around.

I can’t reach hum either. When he’s needed, he’s supposed to turn up. The TARDIS certainly is keeping him away. The universe has bigger problems than us. As long as you are alive, he can stay where he wants. Are you with him right now? Is he taking care of you properly? Does he know about the Wolf? Do **_you_** know about the Wolf? I wish I could get a hold of you. I’d feel better. I’d feel even better if I could remember you without drugs. If you don’t hear about me anymore, I would have had an overdose from trying to remember you.

Your Doctor.

x

My dear Rose,

Remember when I used to say that humans were stupid apes but still thought that they were amazing and capable of huge things? I’m taking back my words. They’re stupid. I am stupid. I can say that now. I’m a stupid human like everyone else on this stupid planet. It was risky, I know. I already knew it when I’ve taken that decision in the few seconds I had left to live as the Doctor, but I had to do it. I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t just die without you knowing that I loved you. So I wished. Really hard. Both the TARDIS and the Bad Wolf have granted that wish, and I was sent back to my good old life, to the ordinary man I was before I became the Doctor. And, as you most likely know it now, something went wrong.

I felt it the minute the regeneration was reaching its end; the minute I was sent back in the body of the man I was before I became the Doctor you’ve met. The Bad Wolf has split. That thought was haunting me. I haven’t taken the entirety of the Bad Wolf from you. The power has split in two. One half was inside my mind and the other half stayed in yours. That was a really bad thing because like I’ve said, the power could kill anyone. And humans could certainly not survive the exposure to such a power. I have been the human proof of my own fear. When I woke up in my former life, my only thought was to find you and the new Doctor, to tell the both of you the danger of our condition. I haven’t been quick enough. I was already suffering from a terrible headache and fever caused by the change of body, inferior to the one I used to have. The police found me before I could do anything and they thought I was mad or drugged or something. I was declared insane by a therapist and sent into a terrible place.

I don’t have many memories of that place. I think the Wolf has erased them all to protect me, but I still have that feeling of dread and pain sometimes for no reason. I had no memories at all actually. I knew who I was and where to find my family, but I have forgotten it all about being the Doctor, about you, about the hospital. There was a two-years gap in my mind, and it was unbearable. It was driving me crazy, for real this time. They made me forget about the Wolf too, the half that’s in my mind. So, when it started revealing itself, I freaked out. So much that I’ve dived into alcohol and hard drugs. That’s when I’ve realised how stupid the sober humans were.

Alcohol and drugs tend to completely daze a person and to destroy a brain bit by bit. In my case, it is totally different. Since I’ve become a human, I feel like I’m stupid and unable to do anything properly – I’m even forced to wear glasses now because I can’t see a thing anymore! – far from the man I was as the Doctor. But when I’m high, it’s like I’m cleverer. I can access the memories I have forgotten because of that stupid nurse, Nash, who tortured me for months. When I’m high, I can remember you, and that warms my human heart to remember your pretty face and your amazing smile. I often wonder where you are, if you’re still with him, the new Doctor, if he has been able to help you. And then, my heart is broken. I can’t help but think of you with him, being happy and traveling through time and space, having fun and holding his hand. All the things we used to do together.

I know how much the Doctor loves coming on Earth, whatever the time and I’m hoping that someday he will notice my distress signal and come to save me from the Time Entity killing me. I’m hoping that he will fix me and help me live a normal and painless life. I’m hoping more than anything that he will come with you so I can finally see you again. Even if the sight of you hand in hand with him will kill me. Well, if I can remember you. Like I’ve said, when I’m not high, I can’t remember anything. As sad as it sounds. But I still can feel that I miss something, someone. That someone is you.

My family thinks you’re a delirium, a woman I’ve created in my disturbed mind. They don’t know yet that I’m into drugs. They think it’s just the alcohol and they try to make me stop before I kill myself. But I can’t stop the drugs or alcohol because that would mean I would forget you, and that’s something I can’t bear to think about. Losing you would kill me faster than alcohol and drugs. I’m clinging to those pieces of memories, to your face and smile and gentleness. I’m clinging to the woman who saved my life, and I’m afraid that one day, I will forget you for good. It terrifies me. It would definitely kill me because I would have lost the piece of me that’s keeping me together.

Please, come back to me.

Maxence Spitz,

The Doctor you used to know before him.

x

My dear Rose,

My brother, Tegan, finally found out I was deep into drugs. I’ve told you about him in previous letters. I’ve called him Tenny once when we were just kids and I’ve never stopped since then. I like the sound of it. I think he does too. He would have asked me to stop if he didn’t like it, right? Tenny’s a cool guy. He’s been worried about me when I disappeared. Well, that’s how he’s calling it, ‘me disappearing’. I didn’t disappear. It’s just that when the Doctor used my body, I couldn’t stay around my family. I had to accept the great responsibilities I was suddenly given and adopt the Doctor’s way of living. When I regenerated, I should have come back to my family. But, as you know, it didn’t happen.

Anyway, like I’ve told you long ago, the drugs and alcohol helped me to remember my past as the Doctor, my past as a patient in that living hell. Without it all, I know that I will forget you and everything we’ve lived together. I don’t mind losing the memories of Nash torturing me but I’m terrified at the idea of losing you. You are the best thing to have ever happened to me, in my human and my alien life. Before I was the Doctor, I was just an insignificant human with no purpose in life. I was just going from small job to small job, trying to survive the best I could in that cruel world. Becoming the Doctor made me realise there was so much more in life. Part of the vortex is still in my mind. So is the Doctor’s knowledge. I could do anything. But Nash took that away from me.

Today, I’m back to my miserable condition. It’s even worse since I feel the need of swallowing those drugs and alcohol to handle it all. If you could see me, you wouldn’t recognise me. My own brother and mother could not even recognise me when I was found in the streets after I escaped Nash’s hospital. And now? They have seen that something wasn’t right, and Tenny found my secret, my guilty pleasure. He keeps asking me why. What should I reply? That I’m clinging to the memories of an extraordinary life? Clinging to the memories of the only woman I’ve ever loved? He wouldn’t understand. Neither would my mother. I don’t like the idea of hurting them, but I need those drugs. I’d lost myself into the madness and nothingness of a normal life. Without you.

Are you even alive, my Rose? I’ve never had the courage to go to the Powell Estates or to go to the TARDIS whenever I hear it in town. I don’t know what would hurt the most: seeing you happy with another man than me or knowing you’ve died because I’ve been too weak to protect you.

Forgetting you when I’m sober feels like losing a part of myself,

Maxence.

x

My dear Rose,

I had one of those dreams again. I’m not sure if it was a dream or an hallucination created by my sick brain. I’m so close to the overdose, but I don’t care. I need to feel close to you, and that’s the only way I can do that. I sometimes turn around to catch your hand, only to see that you’re not here anymore. The Wolf makes sure to help me remember you the best it can. It plays the memories of you, and it definitely warms my heart.

But, about that dream, or whatever it was: I was walking to some job appliance I knew I wouldn’t get, and it was raining. You should have seen me, stuck in that penguin suit, all neat and tidy. You would have laughed. I looked so ridiculous. I had an umbrella and I was walking quickly. And I heard you. You said my name. Not my human name. ‘Doctor’. You called me ‘Doctor’ with that accent of yours, that accent from the Estates I loved. I turned around and you were standing there, facing me, completely damp. And I had a heart attack.

Well, I think I did because, for a moment, my heart stopped beating, and when I started walking towards you, you turned around and ran away. I ran after you, completely forgetting the job appliance, but I ended up losing you. And losing myself in the process. I was left standing there, in the middle of a crowded place. I’ve let go my umbrella, or it has been stolen, and I was getting soaked. It was the least of my troubles. You were nowhere in sight, and my heart was bleeding. What could I do? What was I supposed to do after that?

I lost my mind. Losing you was the worst thing that could have ever happened to me. Can you see it? Can you see the waste I am from where you are? With him, or anywhere else, with anyone else? I’ve woken up in an unsanitary toilet booth, my tie around my arm, and a syringe in my vein. I was coming back from a bad trip and coming down was hard. Violent. If it hadn’t been for the Wolf, I would never have made it back home and would have died there. Well, die. I can’t even die anymore. I’m an immortal now, half-human, half Time Lord, condemned to see everyone dying while I carry my burden to the end of times.

Sometimes, I regret my life as the Doctor. I wouldn’t have met you, but it would have been the best. For you, and for me. It was extraordinary to be him, but no one, no Time Lord has ever thought that the dying Doctor could be reincarnated, sent back in his previous body with his memory. The memories of his current life and the memories of his extraordinary life among the stars. It tends to create a destabilising ability to fall into a certain dissociative identity disorder. Mine has been created by Nash who also erased the Doctor from me. But you can’t accept and understand the Wolf without the Doctor. She has broken me.

Please, come and save me.

Maxence.

x

Rose,

Today, the Wolf gave me a glimpse of your life and it totally infuriated me! How could your mother have sent you in that institute in Peckham? Doesn’t she know that it’s closed to the public? That there is no patient in there, except for the underground prisoners? There’s perception filter all around the place so no one will have the idea of taking a look inside and see what is happening. I was ready to come and save you before it’s too late but the Wolf locked me in its golden cage. It said that it was meant to happen, that we will meet again when the right time will come. And I have to live with the thought of you as a prisoner of the demonic Nash, knowing that she will torture you as well as she tortured me. I’ve only written bits of it in my previous letters, but I never went into details. I could never have. It was too terrible. But I guess you ought to know now.

My memories are a blur because the Wolf has erased them to protect me but when I drink, when I’m high, I forget my human identity and I’m back to the person you used to know. My memories come back to me. You come back to me. I think it’s time now, time to tell you what I’ve been through with Nash, with that hospital that is nothing more than a prison for exceptional beings like us. I don’t know who is the real boss of the place. I’m sure to have seen or heard that person, but I can’t remember it clearly. All I know is that Nash isn’t the real boss even if she pretends to be. There’s someone above her, above all the staff. He or she is manipulating everyone in that place and making them believe that they’re doing something good, that they’re taking a part in some scientific experiments. Not quite the truth.

The place is really a centre of researches. I can’t deny that. I’ve seen too many of them when I was the Doctor to recognise one when I’m facing it. However, it’s the first time I saw a _human_ centre of researches so advanced in alien technology. There are rooms full of human torture devices and there are those hidden rooms where they collect alien artefacts and boxes full of reports of alien appearances on Earth and about the aliens they caught over the years, but also about the tests they’re running and the results they get. I saw it all in my numerous attempts to run away from the place. There is one way since I’m out now. But it took me so much time to find it. Every time I was about to succeed, Nash appeared out of nowhere and threw me back in my cell.

That was my life in her hospital. Not so different from my life as the Doctor, heh? But so much more dangerous. If it wasn’t for the Wolf, I would be dead by now. I wish I could tell you more but I’m coming down and memories are fading away from me. Tegan will be there soon. I gotta be clean. And forget you.

I’ll forever love you,

Maxence.


	13. Chapter 13

Maxence was standing in his underwear in the bathroom. He held his arms out, inside up, and waited. His brother was examining every inch of his skin – hands, fingers, arms, elbows, legs, toes – and checking his face – his eyes, inside his nostrils, inside his mouth. Th end of this exam consisted in him peeing in a plastic recipient Tegan was carefully sealing and dropping at the lab he was working with as a doctor. Every day, it was the same routine. A mandatory routine for him. He had gone through four detoxifications in two years so now, his family was taking all the necessary measures for him not to dive back a fifth time. It could be lethal to him. His liver and his brain had been badly damaged by years of drugs and alcohol intakes. He had been clean for six months now and the withdrawal and need for a new dose that could numb his pain for a little longer, but he was resisting, for the sake of his family. He was doing much better, every day, one day at a time.

The first weeks after his last rehab journey he had lived at his mother’s under the close watch of his mother and brother. At night, he was tied to his bed, someone was sleeping on a camp bed beside his bed, the door was locked. They were taking turns to watch over him and get some rest. They were taking turns to take care of him when he was sick. On days, he was working as his mother’s assistant in the elementary school she was a teacher in. He was preparing the classroom on morning and cleaning it at the end of the day, after all kids were gone. He sometimes helped preparing the lessons and activities for the next day. It helped me to adopt a new routine and to be surrounded by ‘normal’ people again. He was reinserted in society as if he had never been gone. It was easy to forget he was ever gone. But not for Joanne, not for Tegan and certainly not for him.

This routine had given him a proper pace of life and had enabled him to focus on a better lifestyle. This withdrawal never really left him but it was easier to be oblivious of it when you had something to keep yourself busy. He was offered a part time contract when he resumed his psychology studies. He was unsure of what he would do once he would get his certification. At least, he would have certifications. It was better than what he had six months ago. He had just come home from a late class and was starving. The medical exam used to irritate him so much before. Now, he was used to it. He showed when Tegan was done and dinner was ready when he came out of the bathroom with a large T-shirt and sweatpants on. They cleaned the kitchen together, Tegan helped him with his lessons and they went to sleep. They both were working the next day.

This flat was new to the both of them. They had moved in last month. Since Maxence was stable, he was allowed to live by himself in his own flat but the decision was heavy and they were all worried that the solitude could drive him back to the dark side so Tegan had left his ridiculously small studio and they had taken this three rooms flat and were sharing the rent. Maxence had the larger room, though he never understood what was the point of this decision. Tegan should have had the bigger room in his opinion. His job required him to have a proper desk to work on and if the smaller bedroom could fit the desk and the bed, it didn’t leave much room for moving around, but Maxence hadn’t insisted, hadn’t fought. He took what he was given and worked with it. His mother and brother only wanted him to be fine again. They knew better than him.

Tegan would never forget the day he had come to his mother’s and found his brother unconscious on the ground with vomit close by. He was doing an overdose and if he hadn’t been found in time – which was a question of minutes in this case – he would have died. His lips were blue, he wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t responsive. Tegan had had to push aside the fact that it was his brother dying under his hands and remember how to do his work properly. If he hadn’t intervened that day, Maxence would be dead. The man had no memory of this but Tegan would never forget. It would forever haunt his mind. He had been the one insisting on Maxence going to rehab when Joanne wanted to heal him at home. After a failed attempt, she had decided that rehab would be better for him. Even if it took four tries to have him cured.

They were glad to have the old Maxence back. Gone were the non-sense about a bad wolf, a flying blue box and a mysterious imaginary woman called Rose he was continuously writing to. Joanne had kept all the letters, they were neatly gathered in a wooden box she was hiding in her room, away from Maxence’s curious hands and eyes. Being sober had made him forget it all about all these bullshits he was spewing when he was high and drunk. If they were asking him one single question, he would look sincerely confused as if it had been entirely deleted from his mind with the reasons of why he was drinking and drugging himself in the first place. He had had brain scans but no damaged had been detected. Nothing to explain his sudden memory loss of the last two years of his life. Without his struggle to remain clean and sober, he would have pondered the question.

He was keeping on with his life, one step at a time, oblivious to the two years gap in his memory. Some people would go mad from not remembering such a long period of their life. They would try at all costs to get it back if it was possible. Not Maxence. He had disappeared for two years, had no memory of it and wasn’t looking for getting these memories back. Last time he had tried such a thing, it had ended up with drugs and alcohol and he refused to dive back for the sake of his family, and for his own sake. His health was fragile since he had messed up so much with his body and another deviation could actually kill him. After going through so much pain and ordeals, after fighting to get better, it would be a shame to abandon the battle. Especially when things were finally going well for him.

He woke up once that night to the sound of discreet footsteps in the flat. He opened his eyes wide and pricked up his ears, his heart racing. His instincts kicked in and forced him silently out of bed with the first thing he could find by hand: his Gibson Les Paul that had seen better days. It was a wonder he hadn’t sold it when he was in need of money for drugs. Instead, he was selling himself. It only worked for a time. He was so glad to be out of these vicious circles he had fallen into. It wasn’t easy every day but life in itself was never an easy game to start with. You had to be prepared to face the good times as well as the bad times. Sometimes there were more bad times than good times. You had to take the blows until it got better and if it didn’t get better soon enough, you just gotta be strong. _He_ had to be strong.

He pushed the door open without a noise and sneaked out of his bedroom. His eyes got used to the darkness and scanned the surroundings. He was expecting to see some kind of burglars nosing around to find anything valuable, was ready to surprise them and knock them out before calling the police. He was almost excited by the adrenaline rushing through his mind and body at the idea of danger and justice. He was disappointed though to find out it was only Tegan who was getting ready to leave the flat and checking his bag. He nearly had a heart attack when Maxence switched on the lights ready to knock him out with his guitar.

“Are you out of your mind?”

The young doctor was keeping his voice low to avoid waking up the neighbours. It was a quiet district and a quiet neighbourhood. He wouldn’t be the one to break the rule. Neither was Maxence who put the guitar down on the table and placed a hand over his heart as if to soothe its maddening rate.

“You’ve scared me, damn it! Thought there was a thief or somethin’.”

“Yeah, sorry. Night emergency. I shouldn’t be long. Was gotta leave a note.”

His Scottish accent that came from years of orphanage with a Scottish social worker – or even from his biological parents, whoever they might be – was stronger due to the fear Maxence had caused him. When he was facing intense emotions, Tegan was almost impossible to understand for anyone who hadn’t grown up with him.

“’Kay. You called mom?”

“Nope. You’re on your own about this. Big test for you.”

Tegan tapped his shoulders, Maxence was dumbfounded. He was never left alone. Not once in the last six months had he been alone at home or at work. Annoying, but for his safety. It was the very first time he would be alone since he was out of his fourth detox. Quite scary and really big test.

Once Tegan was gone, Maxence drunk a big glass of water and went back to bed with his phone. It took him a moment to fall back asleep. The concept of being alone in the flat was new and pretty frightening to him who was constantly fighting demons threatening to overwhelm him again.

He woke up a second time that night. He had expected his second waking to be at the sound of his brother coming back home. Yet, despite the time that had passed between the last time he checked his alarm clock and now, Tegan wasn’t home. It was pain that woke him up. He felt a deep, jagged, burning pain in the fleshy part of his right forearm. It ceased for a second, then the pain hit again like a knife driven deep in his flesh and moving around to inflict as much pain as possible and create just as many manages.

He switched the light on with a cry of pain and glanced at his arm. His eyes grew wide with horror and shock when he saw the blood covered his sheets and skin. Immediately he pressed a hand on the wounded arm and rushed to the bathroom. He rinsed the blood as the invisible knife was continuing his business until suddenly the pain was gone and three letters showed up in the middle of the blood: ‘RUN’.

For a long moment, he stared confusedly at the three letters deeply carved in his skin as blood was still flowing out from the cuts. His mind was racing, his heart was pounding hard, his hands were shaking, he was breathless. He blinked, rubbed his eyes but the three letters were still there, still painful and bloody. ‘RUN’. He used to love running when he was younger but his bad habits had gotten the best of it and he had stopped doing sports. He should get back to it soon. It was important for him to keep in shape now that he had a healthier life. ‘RUN’. Why this word? Was it a reminder of a past he had forgotten? He could hear himself saying those words to someone. It was in a basement. Perhaps a dream. It looked too weird to be a real-life situation. ‘RUN’. How had those words appeared on his skin so suddenly? He was certain not to have done that to himself in his sleep. The letters just came out of nowhere.

He gripped the edge of the sink when dizziness from the loss of blood hit. His left hand had a stronger grip than his right one. It was lacking of strength. The cuts were deep and needed to be taken care of. He would pass out if he couldn’t get a hold of a doctor. Thankfully, he had some knowledge in medicine thanks to Tegan and to his own studies. He cleaned the blood from his arm the best he could and wrapped it tight in a towel. Then, he ran to his bedroom and grabbed his phone. He called his mother first but she wasn’t answering. She was still asleep. He tried Tegan who was obviously not home but didn’t get any luckier. He was left to deal with this non-sense on his own. Great. First night alone and he had to go through something like this. What would his mother say? What would Tegan say?

If he was telling them the truth, they would think he was crazy or high again and would never trust him ever again. Words just didn’t appear all of a sudden on someone’s skin. It wasn’t possible. If he was lying to them, if he said that he did that to himself, they would be sad and worried about his mental health. He didn’t have a therapist. They had thought it would be a bad idea considering his mad words. They would have had him locked away in the loony bin. The thought of it was terrifying him for some mysterious reason.

He managed to gather his ID papers, his keys and phone in a bumbag he put on his shoulder. He left the flat quickly, locked the door, thought that if Tegan was coming home to find no one and bloody sheets he would freak out. He went down the first flight of stairs, tripped on the last step and ran into the wall nearly knocking himself out. How was he supposed to reach the closest hospital if he couldn’t even get out of his place without tripping?


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He was slouched on the bench, his back against the bus shelter, his face paler than usual in the crude street lightning, his hair and shirt damp with sweat, his towel soaked with blood. He was trembling and burning hot when she touched his cheek with the back of her fingers."

It was a neighbour from the building next to his who saw him stumbling to the bus stop with a bloody towel around his arm who came to help when he collapsed on the bench. The bus wasn’t about to come so deep in the night, and he wasn’t in a good shape enough to wait until the first one came around. He was lucky that she had needed the loo at that exact moment. She wasn’t long to pull clothes on and to rush to his side. He was slouched on the bench, his back against the bus shelter, his face paler than usual in the crude street lightning, his hair and shirt damp with sweat, his towel soaked with blood. He was trembling and burning hot when she touched his cheek with the back of her fingers. He opened his eyes, which seemed to request a high effort to his weakened self. The loss of blood was too important. A vein must have been hit.

“Maxence? Do you hear me?”

He blinked to focus on the face beside him. He wasn’t sure if she was real or if it was a hallucination. Ginger hair, hazel blue eyes, accent from Chiswick. He knew her. He had met her already. Once or twice. Or more. Maybe he was just imagining her. He turned his head toward the road. A small blonde was standing there. This woman definitely was a hallucination. She smiled at him, waved at him. Then, a car passed through her and she was gone.

“Hold on, ‘kay? I’m taking you to the hospital.”

She lifted him up to his feet, wrapped his left arm around her shoulders and dragged him to her car. She dropped him on the passenger seat, buckled him up before quickly moving to the driver side. She had to be quick. He was in a rough condition.

x

“How did it happen?”

Maxence blinked, forced himself to take his eyes off the nurse’s hands that were bandaging his arm. It wasn’t serious. The cuts weren’t too deep. No stitches had been needed. The nurse had cleaned all the blood, examined the wounds and disinfect it all. They were bleeding still but the flow had drastically lessened. It would stain the bandage rather quickly and he would have to change it often. Good thing he was living with a doctor.

“No idea. I woke up and it was there.”

“Any sleep issues? Sleep walking for instance?”

“Insomnia is all. I’m a former drug addict and alcoholic. Six months sober to this day.”

“Congrats. Have you self-harmed before?”

“Never.”

“Do you feel particularly anxious? Or sad?”

“My brother is a GP. He was called in the night. That’s the first time I was left alone since my last journey in rehab.”

To him, there was no reason to keep it all a secret. Yet, the nurse’s facial expression and the fact she was writing a lot on his patient’s record were worrying to him. It was a bad sign. She was gonna send him to the loony bin and he hadn’t even told her that the words had carved themselves on his skin. That was the detail he couldn’t say out loud. It would be the detail that would give him a free ticket for a room in the psychiatric ward.

“You think I’ve done that to myself?” he reproached her. “I didn’t. I woke up and it was there. Period.”

He was gonna stay there with someone who didn’t believe him. She tried to stop him rom gathering his stuff and leaving but he was stubborn and wouldn’t listen. It was Joanne who intervened. The neighbour had managed to reach her while Maxence was taken care of. She happened to be one of her colleagues who Joanne had taught everything to in her early days.

“Joanne Spitz,” she introduced herself. “I’m his mother. Miss Noble called me to let me know.”

Inside Maxence, a wave of panic washed over his heart, hitched the breath in his throat, had his hands gripping the sheet he was sat on. Another part of him was relieved to hear her voice, to see her standing there between him and the nurse to be sure he wouldn’t be taken away to a ward he didn’t want to go to. She was protecting him, for now. Soon, she would be angry with him. Angry for something he hadn’t done.

Joanne won the silent staring fight and the nurse moved away, muttering that she had something to do and would be back in a few minutes. Joanne grabbed her son’s shoulders, examined him quickly and wrapped him in one of the tightest hugs she had ever given him. She had been scared to wake up to his missed calls, terrified to hear Donna tell her that she had taken him to the hospital and he was there, pale, arm bandaged and willing to go back to bed. He was okay. Alive. She hadn’t lost him again.

There was the clearing of a throat and Maxence’s face went from a panicked relief to anger again. The nurse was back and she wasn’t alone. She had brought someone else. Certainly someone from the psychiatric ward despite his refusal to see someone.

“If that’s not for the discharge papers, you can go to another patient because my son won’t go anywhere else but home with me.”

“Mr Spitz, Nancy called me to help your son. She was worried about him, and his mental health. It’s just for a check-up. Nothing more.”

The voice of this new specialist was familiar to Maxence. He already had heard this before. It was not so long ago, yet it felt like it was an eternity. He glanced up, looked above his mother’s shoulder and his eyes grew wide when he saw the small blonde with dark brown roots. She had changed, no doubt on that. She looked cleaner, healthier, happier almost. She had cut her hair in a lovely bob; her cheeks weren’t hollow anymore. She was wearing a white coat on a trouser-suit… and battered brown boots. She was a cutie, and looked much younger than him though she was only one year younger than him.

“Amy?”

She didn’t look surprised that he was recognising her. Obviously, she had been off the drugs she was using when they first met. She had long recovered from the shit she was slowly killing herself with, when he was just beginning on this path. She could be of a great help as an abstinence patron. If only her name badge didn’t indicate that she was working in psychiatry.

“My actual name is Anna. Dr Anna Lewis. I left Amy and her setbacks behind me a while ago.”

“Do you know each other?” asked Joanne.

The nurse was gone. She had taken advantage of Maxence talking to her colleague to silently move away before the Spitz could remember that she was there. The next step in Maxence Spitz’s recovery was all up to Anna Lewis. She was the one who would decide if he could be discharged. No one else.

“We’ve met when I was high.”

Maxence was half-lying there. It was true that Anna and him had met each other during his time as an alcoholic junky, but she was the one who offered him drugs the first time. He had fallen into the vicious circle because she pushed him into it. He had the choice, and he had made the wrong, influenced by her lie about it taking the pain away.

“I’ve left all of this behind me. I’ve worked hard on myself, and went back to my job. Dr Anna Lewis, psychiatrist, that’s me.”

She tapped on her name tag with a yellow painted nail and a bright smile before inviting them to follow her to an empty examination room where she talked with Maxence for a while before Joanne was allowed in. There was no anger on his face. Instead, he seemed pretty serene. Maybe had she been wrong to deny him the access to someone he could talk to. But there were so many things Maxence had told her that couldn’t be told to someone else.

“Mrs Spitz, I have to reassure you immediately: your son is no danger for himself or for others. He’s not suicidal, he doesn’t self-harm. There’s a strong hint of anxiety and depression though, and if it’s not taken in charge, it could get worse and lead to the previous behaviours we named before.”

Joanne looked between the Dr Lewis and Maxence who was cuddling his painful arm against his chest. There was blood on the white strips of cloth. Cuts on his arm. Self-harming. Psychiatry. She hadn’t been told why Maxence was here in the first place and was deducing it all from the clues she had before her eyes.

“What do you recommend?”

“I can be his therapist. I think the fact he knows me already is helpful to him. He wouldn’t open up with a colleague of mine. A session per week for now, more if needed. No need for a close surveillance, like I said, he’s not a danger to himself or others.” She pulled a small tablet out of her pocket, checked something on it. “We can schedule a first appointment this week. What about Wednesday, 11am?”

“Fine by me,” said Maxence.

If it was fine by him, then Joanne couldn’t force him to not see a specialist who would help him, even if he had met this specialist before when he was in deep troubles and she hadn’t done anything to help him. She gave her approval. She would come with him for the first sessions. Just to be sure it really was what he needed, to be sure it was helping him and not putting more pressure on his shoulders because of the things he couldn’t tell his therapist…


	15. Chapter 15

It wasn’t until hours later, until the end of the afternoon, that Maxence was allowed to go to bed in the bedroom he used to sleep in when he was younger, and when he came back after his two years of disappearance. Today, it was just because he was too exhausted to go back home through buses and Tegan had work to do in his surgery. They would both sleep there that night and go back to the flat the next morning. The argument had been rough, and Maxence was done justifying himself. It had been easier to convince Anna Lewis that he was sane than to convince his mother and brother that he hadn’t carved these words in his self. Well, Joanne was keener to believe him when Tegan was refusing any of this non-sense. They both knew something Maxence didn’t, and it had been confirmed when he got angry and bit back.

It seemed clear to him that they both hiding things from him, things he might have said when he was under drugs or heavily alcoholised. As soon as they were home, Joanne ripped the bandages off his arm to see what was under. The letters R.U.N. were clear on his skin, surrounded and covered by dried and fresh blood, stinking hospital disinfectant. She had observed the letters. At first, she had looked sad. Then, she got angry like he had thought she would. This doctor had told them he didn’t self-harm but looked like self-harming. He was totally unable to tell her why these letters, why this word, how it had appeared on his skin. He just woke up and it was there. She didn’t believe him at first, but something in her facial expressions showed him that it was a cover, that a part of her did believe his non-sense and she was just acting this why to protect him.

Tegan however has vehemently been telling him that he believed none of this bullshit and that he wouldn’t leave him alone ever again despite the instructions of the doctor Lewis. If this woman couldn’t recognise self-harming when she saw it, how could she have become a therapist this famous around here? How could they accept her to take care of his brother knowing that? Joanne had met the woman and decided that she was trustworthy, and she spelt it out to her second son. It wasn’t only Maxence’s decision but also hers. Tegan could only shut up on that one, but he refused to let Maxence have the last word on the matter. ‘Words don’t appear suddenly on one’s skin,’ had he declared furiously before accusing him of having taken something while he was alone. To which Maxence answered by peeing in an empty mug left on the coffee table and giving it to him for analysis.

His behaviour obviously infuriated them more and the fact they refused to believe him was making him internally explode. His rage was climbing step by step, like a spark thrown in a forest ground: the dry twigs were producing smoke as the first flame was burning bright and spreading fast to the other twigs and fallen leaves, to the green foam licking the foot of trees and climbing along the trunks, reaching the branches, slipping on the bright green leaves, jumping to the next tree and spreading until the whole forest was on fire; or like a calm sea quietly retiring, preparing its revenge on the world of Humans before submerging it with the violence of a volcano spitting fire. At that moment, he had been that tiny spark burning the forest, that sea crashing on the land to destroy it all, that volcano erupting. He had clenched his fists, contracted his jaw and barked… No, it wasn’t a word that had come out of his throat but more something like a loud growl as if a feral beast was sleeping in him and was awoken by the fury he felt.

Time had slowed down and for a second, for a terribly long second, he was tempted to grab their throat and crush them until their face turned red then blue, until blood filled the white in their eyes. The rage was overwhelming him blinding him. He was distancing himself from his corporeal envelope, watching the scene from someone else’s point of view, but through his own eyes. His mother and his brother had stepped back, terror written all over their face, and he had realised that he had lunged forward. He couldn’t control his body. And then, he had been in control again, had moved back brutally, and fallen on the ground. The shock had brought him back to his senses, but he hadn’t gotten up and no one had come to help him.

A few minutes later, the front door was slammed and his mother’s face had appeared before him. She had helped him up, checked him for any wound and sent him to the kitchen where she had silently redone the bandage around his arm, given him food and told him to go to bed. The only relief of this day. He didn’t fall asleep immediately asleep despite his exhaustion after over a day without sleeping. His mind was blank. He was staring at the cracked paint of the ceiling until he drifted off. That night, he didn’t dream, or he did but couldn’t remember. He didn’t wake up of all night, of all morning. Apparently, surviving “self-harm” and rage rising to the point of almost hurting his family was draining enough to sleep until late in the afternoon. His mother was sat at the foot of his bed, watching over him. She probably had spent all night here to be sure he wouldn’t run away or hurt himself again. The first option had happened before, when the withdrawal was too hard to handle and a dose was necessary. None of his plans ever worked: his mother and brother had thought about it all.

“Tell me you haven’t done it.”

“I haven’t,” he mumbled sleepily.

“Tegan doesn’t believe it, and he’s qualified for this kind of things.”

“Tegan’s wrong. He’s rational. This,” he pointed to his arm, “is not rational. I have troubles believing it myself. But this is the truth. These three letters carved themselves in my skin. I **_saw_** it with my own eyes.”

Maxence had nothing to hide, no reason to lie. He was clean and sober. He hadn’t had the time to drink or take anything, and he had even refused painkillers when he was at the hospital. It was a real proof of sobriety and courage and will. On one hand, it was hard to believe him: words just didn’t appear on one’s skin. On the other hand, Maxence hadn’t given them a reason to doubt him in the last six months. He had been a real model of virtue since his last journey in rehab and there was no sign of him ever falling back in his bad habits. The idea that he could die if he was falling back in his demons seemed to have brought him back to his senses. Which was relieving to Joanne. But she hated siding with one of her sons and leaving the other aside. Especially when the other one was someone who always felt like his side was never taken because he wasn’t blood-related to her.

“I want to believe you, Maxence. But you have to understand why we’re doubting.”

“I refused to believe it too, but that’s the truth.”

And Joanne had to admit that he was right. He refused to go back to the flat for a few days. He was still mad at Tegan for being so harsh on him and pushing him so far when he was so unstable. It was the night after his appointment with the Dr Anna Lewis. He woke up once with that stinging pain once again. It was on his right side this time. Another word. A longer word. ‘DOCTOR’. It comforted him in his choices of studies and convinced his mother that he had been saying the truth since the beginning. She saw the letters form themselves on his skin with her own eyes. She didn’t take him to the hospital. She took care of him herself. If they showed up to the hospital with another proof that he had “self-harmed” – which he hadn’t, Joanne was sure of it now – they would have him locked away and she certainly wasn’t gonna allow that.

He continued on seeing the doctor Lewis. This woman had seen something in him, or he had told her something that had convinced her he was mentally sane despite everything strange happening around him. Once a week, he was going to the hospital, always accompanied by his mother, and was spending an hour in her office. He felt much better when he was walking out of this office but never talked about what they were telling each other. Joanne never asked questions either. She wanted to know, but if he needed someone from the outside to speak, it was because he couldn’t manage to say it to her, or was afraid to. Whatever it was, she was just glad that her son could talk to someone and feel better. It wasn’t an easy victory after the last few years they had been through. He was making an extraordinary recovery.

What Joanne didn’t know was that Anna had found some things about Maxence that could possibly explain his strange behaviour and the sudden appearance of these words on his skin. After her rehab, after her own therapy – that she was still going to along with the AA and anonymous junkies meetings – she had been given files, made her researches on the patients. She also had made her researches on Maxence, this man she had met when she was in her depravity. She had found a confidential file on her desk once. No one was able to tell her how it had arrived there, but she soon understood why. It had been dropped on her desk because she knew Maxence and could help him since she had been through a similar experience. The words on his skin were familiar to her, she had the same on her own skin. They had appeared shortly after meeting Maxence, but she knew what they meant. She just couldn’t tell him. It was written in red and bold in his file.

“A new word appeared last week. The night that followed our last appointment.”

“In the middle of the night again?”

“Yeah. I was at my mom’s. She saw it with her own eyes. She believes me now, even if neither of us understand how it’s even possible. And she knows for sure that I’m sober.”

“What’s the new word?”

Maxence stood up and carefully lifted up his jacket and T-shirt to show her the red swollen letters underneath. It wasn’t bleeding anymore but it was sensitive and painful. It could totally be healed by the end of the day too though. His body seemed to have a fast healing power he never was aware of before. It was coming in quite handy with this new ‘sickness’ of his. He wished it could make the words disappear totally, but it was impossible so he was hiding them under his clothes.

“‘Doctor’? Does it mean anything to you?”

“Not at all?”

He shook his head, tucked his shirt back in his pants and sat back down with a sigh. Two words and none of them had a meaning to him, nor do they mean anything at all when he tried to combine them. His body and mind were sending him a reminder, or a warning and he didn’t have the faintest idea of what it could be.

“I have this word too,” Anna softly admitted.

She slowly got up and showed him the pale skin of her side where the healed letters were. It was the same words, with the same writing, on the same spot, but on two different persons. It couldn’t be a coincidence. There had to be a link to all of this. Something to explain why the words were appearing on the both of them.

“Do you know the doctor Nash Grieve?” the doctor Lewis asked, sitting back in her chair.

Once again, Maxence shook his head. Yet, his brow was furrowed. He was certain not to know the doctor Nash Grieve but the name was kind of familiar to his ears. As if he was supposed to know this man… or woman but couldn’t remember it. Something was pushing against the walls of the void in his mind. All the answers he needed were hidden there. He was convinced of it.

Anna told him that the doctor Nash Grieve was a therapist specialised in ‘supernatural’ sickness like the one they were both suffering from. However, when Anna had wanted to ask for her help when her words appeared, she was nowhere to be found. When she had looked for her after reading Maxence’s file – who had been registered with her a while ago but couldn’t remember it – she hadn’t been able to find her either. No one knew where or who she was. It was like she had disappeared from Earth. Or been eliminated. After all, quitting Quiston was punished with the death sentence if you were found…


	16. Chapter 16

The doctor Nash Grieve hadn’t disappeared. She was still working under Jeremy Backfire’s orders or, should she say, threats, in his mental hospital that was now qualified as the cheapest and worst institution of London and of Great-Britain. However, it was of no importance to the man. The upper part, the public part of the hospital was ruled by one of his trustworthy friends. It was done properly enough to avoid any kind of suspicions that would lead to an in-depth investigation. That would be really problematic. There were things that couldn’t be found underneath the surface. Under the hospital, there was a prison for supernatural beings, a prison built in guts of Earth, buried so deeply for the screams and begs to neve reach the world; a prison but also a laboratory to run experiences on those beings who weren’t considered as beings and were refused all rights. No one knew they were there; no one would ever know they were here. The only one to have escaped was Maxence Spitz.

Jeremy Backfire had been furious to find out that his son was gone, even ore when he found out that Maxence was back to his mother and was, consequently, protected. Joanne Spitz was his ex-wife, the woman he had had Maxence with and also the only person on Earth he feared. He would admit such a thing since he was the perfect example of the macho man, all in masculinity and thick mind on certain subjects, but contrarily to most macho men, he was clever enough not to hate on woman. He secretly feared them. Well, only their name was Joanne Spitz. That was why he had never tried to get his hands on Maxence since he was back home despite his burning desire to force him to reveal the Doctor and the Wolf’s secrets.

He was fairly certain that Maxence had been helped for his escape. His suspicions were on Nash. She had been the first one to talk to him when he was brought to that hospital. A relationship of trust was born that day, and nothing of what she had done to him on his orders had broken it for some reasons. Jeremy had interviewed her in his office but could get nothing from her. He had taken her in the coloured rooms. He tortured her in every one of them like she had tortured Maxence, still under his orders. He even tortured her dear friend Maya but couldn’t get a word from her. He proved her mind, and was left clueless. The woman who knew everyone and everything about the place couldn’t tell how Maxence had escaped. The Wolf probably managed to get out of here on its own, the human wasn’t clever enough for that.

Human were despicable in every single aspect: they were fragile and fell to pieces with the light push of the wind in their back; they were vulnerable to the tiniest of germs that could kill them in a couple of hours; they were limited and powerless, stuck in a weak corporeal shell, unable to use their brain cells to their full capacities. Jeremy had been one of those humans since his birth and had always been frustrated by this condition. Of course this revelation hadn’t hit him before he was a man in his late twenties, about to enter his thirties. It was after Joanne had kicked him out of **_his_** house in Manchester. He had moved to London where repeated and unexplained attacks had pushed him to do his own inquiry and soon he found himself obsessing over his need to meet an alien properly. Despite their obvious presence everywhere he was unable to find one.

His first encounter with an alien had happened three years ago. At that time, he was well established in London as headmaster of one of the numerous jails of the country, one where all the worst psychotic criminals were locked away. He had rebuilt his life with another woman, was fostering kids. It was hiding the darkness growing in him ever since the birth of his first son but this violence and darkness had taken an unexpected turn when his wife brought a fifteen-year-old teenager from the orphanage she was picking all of her lost causes in. The girl was shy, easily intimidated and had issues being comfortable around anyone. She also had a tattoo – that she called a birth mark she had had since forever – he had seen a couple times before in his researches: she was a hidden shapeshifter. She ignored everything of her true nature, was living as a human, was weak, gullible, easy to manipulate. He had intimidated her, had murmured in her ear at night, made her fall under his complete control.

He was human still at that moment but he could feel her fear. He could smell it on her, on her clothes reeked of her sweat, on her skin when his lips brushed over her body, in her words and in her body language when he was around her. He had become obsessed with her, with her body, with her scent… And the idea of her genes had been driving him insane. He literally had had alien material by hand and couldn’t use it, couldn’t do anything of it. He had lost his ability to sleep, spent his night watching her sleeping. Until he couldn’t just sit and stare. He had begun touching her, stroking her skin with the back of his fingers, dropping kisses along her jaw and neckline. She had tried to fight him, tried to defend herself but what could a teenager do against an adult? Who could she talk to? She had nothing and no one to turn to, no one who would believe her. He would have turned everyone against her if she even had tried. He had her in his total control and she was powerless when he had murmured that it was all her fault and had taken her most precious belonging.

He had sent her back to the orphanage she was coming from a couple days later, accusing her of being a troublemaker, just before Christmas. A few weeks later, he had found out that she was pregnant, which could have been good news – it meant he would have upgraded the Backfire lineage – if he hadn’t been told that when she had a miscarriage and lost the baby. He had influenced her doctors with enough money for them to give him the dead foetus and also to make sure the young woman would never be able to procreate ever again. If she couldn’t carry his children, she would carry none. It was also another successful attempt to intimidate her so she wouldn’t say a word about what he had done to her. She hadn’t talked, had kept silent when she was interrogated about the incident. She had been suspected to have had sex with another teenager from the orphanage or someone from the outside. It was perfect for him. No one knew about his past – Joanne and Maxence had never talked or filed a complaint, kicking him out was apparently enough – and his reputation was intact.

Later, he was promoted headmaster of this mental institute in Peckham that was threatening to close its doors since no one could handle the patients that were locked away in there. He had accepted for the place was presenting all the advantages he had been looking for to continue his researches. The basement contained the remains of the past when torture on the patients was allowed, before it was declared illegal and abandoned there. Perfect. He had drawn new plans for the place, had them done quickly and secretly and soon the basement was equipped with laboratories and rooms for the most difficult patients as he called them. Patients that would be aliens in captivity, but that was his secret. He couldn’t talk about it to anyone before he found the right persons to work with, meaning he had to operate a total reorganisation of the staff. A staff that appeared to be pretty interesting in the end.

Many non-terrestrial creatures were hiding in this building, as patients and medical staff. Among them he found what looked like a family of shapeshifters: Nash Grieve, only qualified therapist here, was the oldest; Maya and Oliver Carson were a married couple; and Alex Baxter was Maya’s young brother. He had made sure the two men would be locked away in the new cells of the basement so the women would work for him without causing troubles. They obviously would ignore what was happening to their friends. There were numerous other races of aliens hidden there. He had only kept the most interesting ones and had turned the others into slaves working for him and obeying his every order – unlike Maya and Nash who had a quite rebellious attitude toward him. Rebellious but not suicidal, they knew where to stop.

His experiences were going well, and he was testing some alien genes on the scums of this society, improving these lost causes or leaving them to die in terrible pains and getting rid of the bodies in an incinerator. When the results were pleasing to him, he would put his life on the line and improve himself with new genes. It wasn’t without pain but he never felt so strong and so powerful in his entire life. He was enjoying every bit of advantage the alien genes and technologies had and throwing away the inconveniences. But this power wasn’t enough. He needed more, more of all of this, more of species, more experiences. Nash, Maya and company belonged to a special race of shapeshifters; shifters that had been exposed to experiences before. Their genes had been modified so that they could become immortal, so they could heal and ‘regenerate’. A gene he hadn’t been able to reproduce from her DNA, a gene belonging to a no longer existing race.

That was when he found out about the Doctor, a lone survivor of the Time War thar had exterminated all of his species and the Daleks. That’s when he found out his son had become the Doctor and was running around the universe as an elusive chimera, a myth, a legend only a few privileged persons had caught sight of. He had been reported to be around London a lot, then spotted in Manchester and back in London where he was caught babbling deliriously before being brought to Jeremy’s institute. Fate was being good on him that day. The Doctor being a prisoner of his hospital without him even trying to catch him – not that he had had the time to think about a strategy to draw him here – and it turned out he had brought an even powerful entity with him called Bad Wolf. This was more than Jeremy could ever have dreamt of. The wheel had turned, he could get his revenge on both his son and ex-wife, and continue his quest for power.

First, he had had to steal the patient from Nash who had made it a point of honour to keep him hidden from him even after finding out how dangerous he was and what was his real identity. The Doctor had protected Maxence well for all the time he was there. So did the Wolf. The duo nicely settled down in the head of a human being going mad from such a power had done their best to screw every research he ever did on him. No bit of data was even usable. They had scrambled and faked everything they could before vanishing into thin air, and what they couldn’t have messed with wasn’t giving convincing results. This was why Jeremy was so furious. Had Maxence been a patient here for a longer time, the results would have been much better. But he hadn’t, and worse than that, he had messed with his father’s mind and created damages that had needed time to heal before Jeremy could come back to work with a rage harder than previously. One way or another, his son would pay for this. He just had to find a weak point.

He remembered the Doctor calling a name when he was in an agitated sleep, in an excruciating pain. A name he wouldn’t even have pronounced if his mind had been sane. His mind wasn’t sane. Not anymore. The power hidden inside him was too much to handle for anyone and it was driving him insane to the point of spilling non-sense to anyone foreign to his world. Non-sense that seemed important enough to Nash Grieve who had written it all down. At least, at the beginning of the therapy. She had been quick to destroy the rest of the file as the months passed by. A way to protect her patient from the darkness of her boss, from the darkness of a father who had already hurt his son in the past. He could never get his hands on the rest of the file but the scraps of data he got were enough for him to pursue his researches on the Doctor. He couldn’t reach the new face involved. It would be too dangerous to have him around.

Rose. This name was the only lead Jeremy had to draw the attention of the Doctor stuck in his son’s mind. If he managed to find her, to bring her to his hospital – he could find any reason to have her locked away – that would send a strong message to this uncatchable alien that kept slipping between his fingers like water. Rose was a common name in the United Kingdom but there was only one Rose who went missing at the same time as Maxence Spitz. No one had thought that these two disappearances could be linked before him. How could humans have with their tiny little brains? Jeremy needed the Doctor’s brain. Not just bits of it like he had taken over the months. He needed to kill the man and dissect him like an animal to find out all of his secret. He would feel no remorse in killing his own son. Maxence had never meant anything to him. All he had been was a nuisance to his life and projects.

Rose Tyler was his best shot for this revenge, and he lost no time in trying to get to her. He didn’t elaborate strategies, didn’t plan anything. He had to be clever and clear and go straight to the point if he wanted work as fast as possible. He went to the Powell Estates in person, introduced himself to Jackie Tyler and before he could say anything else, he was kicked out with names and fury. Apparently, the woman mistook him for his son who was his spitting image and thought he should go to hell before even thinking of coming back around her daughter. This attempt was a failure but it confirmed Jeremy’s thoughts that Rose Tyler was the person they had been looking for all along. She had been traveling with the Doctor and he had left her behind when he changed. Perfect. Now, he just had to be patient and build a real plan to make her fall into a deadly trap…


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "However, there was something else. Something she hadn’t seen or planned. She soon realised it had become a habit in her daily routine only months after Maxence had flown."

Jeremy would never know it. Nash had promised herself to never let him find out about this secret of hers. He had never interrogated her again after finding out Maxence’s absence in the institute. He probably thought that it was useless since she didn’t know anything. It was a precaution for herself and for the people she cared about. She had planned it all during Jeremy’s absence. It had been a unique chance. They wouldn’t have had another chance so she quickly had built a plan and executed it. In that green room where she had pretended to do tests on him, she had had a serious chat with the Bad Wolf. She had gone straight to the point: The Wolf had to lock away all the memories of itself and the Doctor to free Maxence from their consciousness. As if they had never existed. As if Maxence had never been the Doctor. Obviously, her memories of the three of them had to be locked away too. Only then did she help Maxence through a secret passage, an order implanted in her mind forgotten as soon as it was over.

However, there was something else. Something she hadn’t seen or planned. She soon realised it had become a habit in her daily routine only months after Maxence had flown. The Wolf had set an automatism in her mind so she was always checking on its human host unconsciously. As it was a goal she was accomplishing without actually thinking of it, it left no real memory or thought in her mind. No memory or thought she could think of consciously and draw Jeremy’s attention. It was a clever trick. She didn’t have to worry about Maxence because she knew deep down in herself that he was doing okay, that he was safe, and she could also intervene in his life to continue helping him. That’s how he had met the doctor Anna Lewis who shared a similar secret with him: she had once been the Doctor and all the memories from that time had been locked away by the Time Lord themselves… a method that had proved to have flaws since the humans’ consciousness were constantly trying to figure out the blur around their life when they had been the Doctor.

Since Nash couldn’t help him, she had found someone else who would be able to. Better: The Wolf had found her so they could help each other with their madness that wasn’t madness. One was dealing with it better than the other, and this was why Anna had been chosen to help Maxence with the words on his skin, the voices in his head when he was between two states of consciousness like between sleep and waking up, between awake and falling asleep, like being too relaxed after a good moment. He hadn’t talked about those voices to anyone but Anna and she hadn’t sent him to a room in the psychiatric ward. She was just writing down what he was telling her, discussing with him of what it could be meaning but none of them could find an answer. It didn’t matter in the end, just being able to speak about this to someone who didn’t consider him to be crazy was enough for Maxence. Tegan was still rejecting the idea of him not being responsible for the words cuts in his skin and Joanne didn’t know where to stand.

Through Anna’s eyes, Nash watched Maxence live his life and be happy. It was all she had ever wanted for him and she was glad – and relieved – to see him following this path. Over the months they followed the apparition of the first word, him and his brother reconciled. None could stay away from the other for too long. Despite being an adopted child, Tegan was well loved. Blood meant nothing to this family – just the case Jeremy Backfire was a huge indicator of this truth – and Tegan was a Spitz as much as Maxence and Joanne. He was wearing the name on his official papers but was using Tegan Smith at work. No one could explain why he was doing this, no one ever questioned him either. It was respect for his choices. The man owed explanations to no one for what he did, and he was of a huge help for Maxence who was overworking himself between his half-time job, his studies and his work placements. Even if they hadn’t followed the same path, they were both in the medical field. Fate probably was what pushed Maxence to pick a course of psychology.

The months turned to years. Maxence never cease to be psychologically followed by Anna Lewis. Both of them were sinking in a madness no other being than them could understand. It was born and amplified by their proximity. The presence of two Doctors’ consciousness locked in two human minds reacting to the presence of the Wolf stuck in one of these very minds. It was tingling the back of their minds, triggering their consciousness, making them aware that they weren’t alone in that head of theirs. It was something the Time Lords hadn’t thought of when they decided to steal human bodies and make them extraordinary before wiping everything away from their accessible memory. They hadn’t taken into consideration that maybe, maybe!, those humans would evolve quicker after being exposed to the great biology and intelligence of a superior race. That was what was happening with Maxence and Anna, both pushed to their human limits by the presence of a powerful entity. An entity that couldn’t be shut down and locked away easily. It would come out now and then whenever the host was losing his temper. Having a second personality made them unstable, and mood swings could trigger the Wolf and force it out, much to the host and their surroundings’ confusion.

Maxence had fully awoken the Wolf a couple of times. He was having terrible migraines and anger issues. His fits were getting out of control and his family often had to deal with this Maxence who wasn’t really Maxence. Tegan had stopped pretending that it was all bullshit after witnessing this second personality, this thing inside his brother’s body, talk and act like it did. Deep inside him, he believed in supernatural stuff. When he had been missing, something happened to him, something that turned him into this frightening double person. It could have been a case of schizophrenia or bipolarity or anything like this but Tegan was **_convinced_** that someone else was living inside his brother’s body. Two souls for one corporeal shell. And one of those souls was called Bad Wolf and was feeding from all the negative vibes around it to gain some strengths back after using it all to erase Maxence’s memory. Then, Maxence would reappear and be oblivious of what had just occurred. He had no idea of what was living in his mind; his family chose to keep it hidden from him. For now.

Joanne was quick to see the link between the letters Maxence used to write when he was high on drugs or alcohol or both at the same time. She had read all those letters and hidden them in a small wooden box that she was keeping away from Maxence. She had thought it was a brilliant masterpiece from a sick mind who could have been published later when the man would be better. Now that he was healed from his addiction and back to the person he was before he went missing, now that she knew that all she had read was the truth, she was **_certain_** that these letters had to remained a secret, that Maxence should never find them and remember who he had been for a year. The Doctor. Tegan had looked up to find something on this alien stealing bodies without getting noticed but couldn’t find anything else but old pictures that have been photoshopped and the website of a nutter who died years ago during an obscure night no one could really remember.

In the meanwhile, Joanne was looking for the Rose Maxence had been writing to. Just like Jeremy, she had quickly found out that it was Rose Tyler, an estate girl who had gone missing around the same time as her son, daughter of Jackie Tyler and of the late Pete Tyler who died in a car accident long before Joanne moved to London. The story of this family was sad enough and she would be adding more to it with the information she had gotten from the letters. If Rose Tyler wasn’t with the new Doctor, she was in danger. But if she had been with that new Doctor, he would have fixed this for her and come back to fix Maxence too. It meant that the body thief didn’t know anything of the damages he had caused on his path. Or he simply didn’t care. But how could a man fall helplessly in love with a woman and leave her to die right after? Had Maxence been the only one to fall for her? Or had the Doctor fallen for her too? The letters suggested that it was the Doctor. Maxence had no memories of a Rose Tyler, and he was soon enough infatuated by another woman.

Tegan was the first one to meet Jackie Tyler, and this meeting was explosive. She nearly threw herself to his throat and yelled that if she was to see him ever again around the Powell Estates, she would destroy him as well as he had destroyed her little girl. She called him names, screamed insanities and he could never explain to her that he wasn’t who she thought he was – who could it be? He never had met a Tyler before and he swore that he never had any twin. Their second meeting was more brutal: before he could say a thing her fist connected with his jaw and she accused him of being a jerk among other things. Tegan supposed the new Doctor looked like him somehow. He couldn’t have been the Doctor himself. He had no memory gap and hadn’t been missing in all his life, but Jackie Tyler thought he was playing a trick on her to get closer to her daughter Rose that he had apparently abandoned behind after she saved his life from death, forcing him to steal a new body. They were lucky to even have gotten Maxence back if this was all true.

While his mother and brother were teaming up to find a way to tell Jackie Tyler that her daughter was in danger, and that they needed the Doctor back on Earth to help them – who could call him if not someone who had travelled with him? – Maxence was quietly continuing his little life and succeeding in his studies year after year. His family was proud of him, and so was a particular neighbour of his. Donna Noble was a teacher in the school Joanne was teaching in and after the night’s incident that had seen her driving Maxence to the hospital, she had grown closer to the family, and to Maxence. They became good friends, best friends, and finally they moved in together in his flat after Tegan found one of his own. He didn’t know the danger there was to date this woman, but the Wolf was, and it had formally told both Joanne and Tegan to never say a word about the Doctor in front of her. This woman also had an history with the man, and it would be lethal to her if she ever remembered. The Time Lord had made a mess of their lives and Tegan truly hated him for that.

x

“What is the news?”

Over the year, Maya had grown so nervous that it had pushed her to the edge and she was adopting her former attitude of a cold-hearted assassin to be able to keep working with Jeremy Backfire. He was holding her husband and her brother as hostages in one of his cells. He had promised to not lay a harmful hand on them unless she gave him a reason to but she was convinced this man wouldn’t keep his word. He had shapeshifters by hand, shapeshifters with Gallifreyan genes should she say. He wouldn’t resist the opportunity to study them like he did with all the aliens’ species he had down there. He had done this on Maxence, on Nash, and on herself. What was stopping him from experiencing on a couple others? The return to her Quiston training had been easily done. Stay calm, feel nothing, do what you were told. This had given her the huge ‘benefit’ to be promoted downstairs with Nash. They were pretending not to know each other, and Maya was strictly forbidden from approaching certain ‘patients’. The punishment would be terrible.

“The Doctor’s not particularly discreet but his attention is never focused on us. Backfire must have done something to keep curious from becoming too interested on what he’s doing in Peckham.”

They were both sat around the table of a coffee shop in a town far, far away from London, where Jeremy wouldn’t be able to find them. They never picked the same town whenever they had to talk, and were avoiding seeing each other at their own places. Jeremy had to ignore about their relationship. It was already a wonder that he hadn’t made the connection, that he thought Maya was different from Nash, from Oliver, from Alex who all belonged to Quiston. If Nash knew about them because they were of the same organization, how could someone who was married to one of them and blood-related to another ignore about their allegiance? Sometimes he was less clever than he thought he was.

“He’s got Oliver and Alex, Nash. Any second counts for them. Who knows what he’s doing to them? I can’t handle this any longer. We have to free them.”

“And how do we do that? None of us has access to their cells. We don’t even know if he’s really keeping them in the building or if he has transferred there somewhere else. We’ve lost all contact with them. We cannot know for sure where they are unless we got Backfire to talk, and he’s not particularly easy to coax.”

“You said you had good news,” grumbled Maya.

“I have. I hate myself for this, but I did what I had to do. We need to bring Maxence back and to force the Doctor in him to resurface. If we can’t get the actual Doctor, we can call the only one we’ve met around here.”

“I thought it would kill him.”

“I thought both the humans hosting a part of the Wolf would be dead by now, but they’re not for some reasons. And we don’t have much of a choice, do we?”

“What’s the plan, then?”

“I’ve already started. I have found Rose Tyler. She wasn’t aware of what was sleeping in her mind until recently and her mother didn’t know what to do anymore with her. She’s become uncontrollable. I’ve convinced her mother that it would be for the best to entrust her daughter to us. After all, we’re specialised in those strange cases. I had her admitted under a false name and placed her in a room upstairs. But Jeremy won’t be long to find out what I’ve done.”

It hadn’t been long to convinced the exhausted Jackie Tyler that it would be for the best if her daughter was entrusted to the doctor Nash Grieve who could understand and help her with her troubles. She had had another case a few years earlier – she hadn’t gone into details, professional secret – and had managed to save him and lead him back on the tracks of a normal life with his family. Jackie Tyler had been distrustful like every single mother who had raised a daughter alone in the Estates could be but she had finally given in and told them where they could meet for Rose to be taken to this cheap institute that happened to be close to their home so she could visit her daughter every day if she wanted. It had been all cries and screams and Nash had felt her old immortal heart break at the sight of his young woman they were taking away from her own family for her ‘own good’. She wouldn’t believe that it was for her own good. Maybe had she felt what was gonna happen to her in this place, and Nash couldn’t have blamed her for being terrified.

Jeremy quickly figured out that Nash had found the second part of the Wolf and had admitted her in his hospital. He had been even quicker to move her down to one of those cells where she became his new obsession and new subject of experiences. The woman was stronger than she looked though, she never answered any of his questions. Instead, she handled the torture, withdrew into herself and became wilder and wilder as the time passed by. They were treating her like an animal, refusing her the visits and good cares she had been promised, and so, she was reacting like an animal, an animal who was stuck in a terrible trap and couldn’t get out on her own. Nash were on charge of her and she hated herself for being so cruel to a human being she had said she would help. Deprived from her ability of helping people and being forced to cruelty, she was falling back into her Quiston cold-hearted assassin attitude too and forgetting that she could be good. Her last good action before she was totally caught in this infernal spiral again, before she lost all her will to be good and feel emotions, was to call the doctor Maxence Spitz on the day he officially graduated and reached the noble status of psychiatrist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are, on the last chapter, on the last page of this relatively short story that had taken me ages to complete. It wasn't an easy one, there are been ups and downs but I went to the end of it finally. I hope you've enjoyed it. Hopefully, the sequel, 'How would you feel', will be up soon too.
> 
> Thank you for staying until the end!


End file.
